successful 




I 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



ShelfvS.fc...... 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



HOW TO BECOME 

A 

SUCCESSFUL ELECTRICIAN 

THE STUDIES TO BE FOLLOWED, METHODS 

OF WORK, FIELDS OF OPERATION AND 

ETHICS OF THE PROFESSION 



By 

T. O'CONOR SLOANE, Ph.D., 

Author of 

The Standard Electrical Dictionary," "Electricity Simplified," 

Etc. 



ILLUSTRATED 



New York : 
NORMAN W. HENLEY & CO. 

Vanderbilt Building, 
132 nassau street. 

1894. 










Copyright, 1894, by 
NORMAN W. HENLEY & CO. 



X5* 



^ 



-: r- 




PREFACE 



The title of this little work is open to a variety of 
interpretations, and may call down different criticisms on 
the author. The nature of each criticism will depend upon 
the ideas the reader possesses of what constitutes success. 
When one of the wealthiest men in the United States 
died, and page after page of the daily papers was devoted 
to the story of his life, it must have occurred to many that 
a man who, as the sum of all those columns, could not 
secure a favorable comment had not lived successfully. 
Yet he began poor and ended rich, and these few words, 
it is to be feared, describe a very usual idea of success. 
There is no doubt that if this book told of a sure road to 
wealth, by means however questionable, it would be in 
great demand. Those who look in it for this will naturally 
be disappointed. 

Prefaces are the least read portions of a book, and 
this preface will share the common lot. Yet in it will 
be given in one word the basis and corner-stone of success 
for each reader. It is himself. If the reader is of the 
right stuff, and cares sufficiently for success, he will succeed. 
If he is not of this material, no book and no study will 
produce the result. 

It seems a hard thing to say that honor and honesty 



are not in themselves favorable to progress in the accumu- 
lation of a fortune. He who, as he feels the end ap- 
proaching, looks back on the long struggle and feels that 
honor was his guide and that he has wronged no man, 
who, as he thinks of his temptations, can know that he 
has mercifully been allowed to escape without stain, can 
but tremble as he recalls the risks he ran, and accept an 
honorable life as a rich measure of good fortune. What 
value will a competence won by wrong methods have, when 
but a few years, and those at the wrong end of life, are 
left for its enjoyment? Leave to those who come after 
you a legacy of memories and traditions of a well-spent 
life, and you will be successful. 

All this sounds like moralizing and may, by him who 
reads this preface, be interpreted as revealing the nature 
of the book itself. This it does ; for the author's idea of 
success is here disclosed. He believes that the man who 
works for a fortune by good and bad means alike is a 
dreary failure, whether he reaches his goal or not. 

The book is left now to the reader. 

" Perhaps it may turn out a sang, 
Perhaps turn out a sermon." 
Iii cither case, it will not be a very long one. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 
Introductory. 
Problems of the Electrical Engineer — His Relations to 
the Investigator in Pure Science — The Self-Taught Elec- 
trician — Age and Natural Aptitude — Thoroughness — 
Observation — Attention to Little Things— Openness ot 
Character — One-Sidedness — Qualities of an Engineer — 
Idleness the Greatest Fault 9 

CHAPTER II. 

Mathematics. 
Arithmetic — Practice Afforded in Mechanics — Powers of 
Ten and Fractional Exponents — Logarithms — Algebra — 
Geometry — Trigonometry — Mensuration — Ohm's Law — 
Mathematics of Chemistry — Analytical Geometry — Cal- 
culus — Conclusion 29 

CHAPTER III. 
Physics. 
Heat and Light — Examples of Application of Physics — 
Bad Practices in Distribution of Light — Reflection of 
Wasted Rays — Economy of the Incandescent Lamp — 
Mechanics — Value of Definitions — Energy — Theory of 
Dimensions — Methods of Study — Experimenting — Physics 
without Apparatus 38 

CHAPTER IV. 
Chemistry 
Difficulties of Experimenting — The Coal-Fire and the 
Plant — The Reaction of the Coal-Fire — Its Equation and 
What It Tells — Equations the Short- Hand of Chemistry — 
Stoichiometry — Experiments — Precautious — Batiery 
Chemicals — Thermo-Chemistry — Chemical Recreations — ■ 
Books — Outlines of a Chemical Course — How to Read — 
Value of a Teacher 47 



vi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 
Electricity at Home. 
Electrical Experiments at Home — Modern Physics 
Taught Quantitatively — Simple Appliances Now Used — 
Making Electrical Apparatus at Home — The Wheatstone 
Bridge — Galvanometer Resistance Coils — Current Strength 
— Batteries — Static Electricity — Electrometers — Conden- 
sers — Ampere's Law — Magnetism 59 

CHAPTER VI. 
Mechanical Engineering. 
Ground Covered by Mechanical Engineering — Its Place 
in Electric Practice — Machines and Tools — Engine Testing 
— Strength of Materials — Machinery — Use of the Hands — 
Extremes in Practice — College Work in Practical Me- 
chanics — Machine-Shop Work for the Student — Observa- 
tion and Reading — Faulty Practice 68 

CHAPTER VII. 
Drawing. 
Drawing a Poor Reliance by Itself — Its Importance to 
the Engineer — Free-Hand Practice— Sketches in Note- 
Books of Physics or Chemistry — Shade Lines— Pen or 
Pencil Practice — Dimension Sketches — Profile Paper — 
Descriptive Geometry — Perspective — Blue Prints — Care of 
Instruments — Conventional Representations — Catalogues.. 77 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Teachers. 
Practicability of Obtaining Assistance in Study — Solving 
Difficulties — Making Every One a Teacher — University 
Extension — School Courses in Science — Different Classes 
of Students — The Hard Workers in the Laboratory — Diffi- 
culty of Teaching Electricity 86 

CHAPTER IX. 
Electrical Factory Work for Students. 
Utility of Factory Work for Students— Who Would Be 
Most Benefited — Uselessness ofSome Positions — Small and 



CONTENTS. vii 

Large Works — Premiums Paid for Positions in Factories — 
Time Expended in Factory Work by Students — Schedules 
of Courses 92 

CHAPTER X. 
College Education. 
Colleges — Disadvantages and Advantages of a College 
Course — Scholarships — Tutorships — Large and Small 
Colleges — Apparatus — Electrical Course Studies 98 

CHAPTER XL 
Steam Engineering. 
Wasted Powers of Nature — Wastefulness of Coal — 
Poor Economy of the Steam -Engine — Coal Consumption 
of a Station — Unfair Records — Errors in Statements — Fads 
— Engines of Different Types — Re volutions in Engineering 
— Steam Engineering a Special Study 107 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Manufacturing Engineer. 
Different Work Done in Factories — Dynamo and Motor 
Building — Improvements in Design — Faults of Cheap 
Motors — Improving the Magnetic Circuit — Small Factories 
— Bad Installation of Good Machinery — Making Parts for 
Distribution of Electric Power — Meters and Their Defects 
— Testing Materials 114 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Constructing Engineer. 
The Erection of Plants — General Knowledge Required 
— The Generating Plant and Its Functions — Boilers and 
Engines — Advanced System of Running Plants — Practice 
and Theory 123 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Station Engineer. 
The Qualities Required — Dealing with Mankind— The 
Public — Complaints — Importance of Courtesy — Skilled 
Workmen — Promotion from the Ranks — Station Economy 
— The President — Executive Ability — Dependence on the 
Factory 129 



viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XV. 
Inventing. 
Should One Become an Inventor?— What Constitutes a 
Successful Invention— Construction and Invention— Use- 
ful and Useless Inventions— The Practical View To Be 
Taken— Novelty as Well as Originality Requisite— Patent 
^f U T?Z^ tentS and Caveats — Claims— Establishing Date 

136 



of Invention 



CHAPTER XVI. 
Original Investigation. 
Qualifications Required for Original Research— Useless 
Iheonzing — Incompetent Theorizers — Originality — 
Publication of Results— Writing Papers 142 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Success. 
The Race for Money— The Nobler Life— The End for 
Which We Are Adapted — Honor and Honesty — The 
Human Element— Directors and Executive Officers— The 
Business Man— Dealing with Vanity— Rings and Cliques 
—Contractors— Over-Scrupulousness— Workmen 150 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Reading. 
English Technical Books— The Index— Reading a Book 
Several Times— Thinking— Reading an Instrument— Tak- 
ing , Notes — Electrical Journals— Range of Reading- 
Definitions— Collecting a Library— Scrap-Books— Card and 
Book Indexes — Scrap- Leaflets— Rapid Reading— Biog- 
raphies ° T. 164 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Ethics. 
Professional Life— The Gentleman— Truth, Justice and 
Honor— Examples of Successful Lives— Brush— Dolbear— 
Giilcher — Lodge — Pacinotti — Elihu Thompson — 
Conclusion i nn 



CHAPTER I. 
Introductory, 
problems of the electrical engineer— his rela- 
tions to the investigator in pure science — 
the self-taught electrician age and nat- 
ural aptitude thoroughness observa- 
tion — attention to little things — openness 

of character one-sidedness qualities of 

an engineer — idleness the greatest fault. 

How to become a successful electrician is a prob- 
lem which cannot be positively solved in words. 
The same qualities which make a good business man 
will go far to make a successful professional man. 
While the success or failure of life depends principally 
on the natural characteristics of the individual, it is 
possible and right to try to direct and guide the 
exertions of young aspirants, and to make their early 
work more directly conducive to the end in view. 

The term electrician includes a very wide range of 
occupations. In laboratories some of the most exact 
work of the scientist is done in electricity. . Such 
operations require a special training, which can only 



10 FIELDS OF WORK. 

be had in the laboratory, and which is generally 
acquired in the advanced school of science. It is 
obvious that the man fortunate enough to have grad- 
uated at one of our great universities as an electrician 
has little need of outside direction in the elements of 
his profession. During his college course the studies 
he must pursue are determined for him. The student 
less fortunate and equally adapted for science, who 
cannot take a college course, may find some words of 
direction and advice useful. 

From the force of circumstances, this book, written 
principally for those who cannot go to college, must 
take special cognizance of electrical engineering. 
This is the great field for the self-educated electrician. 
From it he may graduate into the laboratory and take 
his part in original investigations, but it is fair to 
assume that he will first be an engineer. 

An electrical engineer is one who works in some of 
the commercial and more directly practical branches 
of electricity. He may be a constructor of dynamos 
and motors ; he may go out of the shop and be entirely 
occupied in erecting plants ; or he may be in charge 
of such plants when running, having a hand in their 
erection or in the construction of the machinery. He 
is understood generally to deal with the larger forms 
of electrical apparatus. One who spends his time in 
minor operations, such as the measurement of capac- 
ities and resistances, would hardly be placed in the 
category of engineers. 



THE ELECTRICAL ENGINEER. 11 



In the laboratory of the richly endowed college, the 
holder of a professorship may devote much of his 
time to original research. His work may take the 
direction of determining electric factors, or of estab- 
lishing the relations of electro-magnetic waves to light 
waves. He may try to solve the mystery of convec- 
tion currents in a liquid, and of electrolytic convection 
in gelatinized solutions. Such work is hardly within 
the scope of the electrical engineer. The scientific 
investigator, confining his work to the realms of 
theory, is the ally and guide of the active operator. 
He finds his field in the laboratory, and his success is 
judged largely by the originality of his investigations. 
Faraday's discovery of the extra current, his obser- 
vation of the minute spark produced when a circuit 
of high self-induction was broken, is one of his 
triumphs. 

The engineer, on the other hand, is in the domain 
of active commercial life, dealing not with abstract 
theory, but with its applications. His success is 
judged not by any apparently fruitless achievement, 
but by the balance-sheet. The engineer's work must 
succeed commercially, and will be judged by his 
employers. To them he is a source of revenue, no 
more and no less. 

A number of watts of energy are to be employed at 
some given locality distant from a central station. 
Shall a main be laid to the' place in question, or shall 
a new station be established there ? If a main, how 



12 ENGINEERING PROBLEMS. 

large shall it be ? The theoretically satisfactory way 
is to keep to one station, so as to concentrate the 
generation of energy in one plant, and to supply it by 
a main of very low resistance to the distant point. 
Here the engineer has to look at the practical as 
opposed to the theoretical aspect. Which system 
will pay the best ? He cannot pretend to put in a 
main of really low resistance, because of the original 
cost of the copper, and because of the interest which 
would be charged on the investment. He can put 
in a high resistance main within the limits of cost, 
but the loss of potential, inevitable to its use, involves 
the loss of energy, which means the waste of coal. 
A distant independent station will necessitate extra 
cost in generation of energy, but will such money 
loss exceed that due to the fall in potential in the 
small main ? Can he make his main of such a size 
as to reduce the fall in potential to due limits, 
without incurring too heavy an interest charge ? 

Such problems as the above confront the electrical 
engineer, and his success in dealing with them must be 
measured by his finding the most economical solution. 
Compare his work with that of the original investi- 
gator. Faraday's tiny spark, a minute fraction of an 
inch in length, is one of the milestones of a life de- 
voted to science. His purely theoretical work is at 
the basis of the profession to which this book is de- 
voted. Yet the question of money never occupied 
Faraday. He sacrificed a lucrative practice simply 



THE SCIENTIST AND HIS WORK. 13 



to devote his life to original work. His abstract 
investigations have had a part in making possible the 
practical work of to-day, and the electrical engineer 
was made possible by the disinterested and apparently 
useless work of many original investigators. No 
one could have seen in their primitive apparatus 
the fathers of the great dynamos of the present time. 
The moral is to be slow to criticise unfavorably 
purely scientific work. It may seem useless, but none 
can tell what it will lead to. This lesson has been 
so well learned that there is little need of insisting 
upon it. No one hears an electrical engineer of any 
standing object to scientific investigation. He knows 
that his whole profession is based upon theoretical 
discoveries, and that he would have no raison d'etre 
but for such work as that of Faraday and J. Clerk 
Maxwell. His field is still an unexplained mystery, 
and 4io one is more anxious for the theorist to explore 
it than is the enlightened engineer. So great is his 
respect for the scientist, that the tiny sparks of Hertz's 
experiments were hailed as a step towards the direct 
production of light. The practical world, now better 
educated and trained, which formerly thought so little 
of the extra current spark, looked with the utmost 
interest on its successor, the Hertz spark, still smaller 
and more insignificant in appearance. The engineer 
now sees at least the possibility of his apparatus 
rivalling in efficiency the fire-fly as a producer of 
light. 



14 ASPIRANTS FOR THE PROFESSION. 



Thus the bonds that with the advent of electricity 
united the scientist to the engineer grew stronger 
every day. Electrical engineers are more highly 
educated than in old times, and many of them are 
capable of executing laboratory investigations them- 
selves. The distinctio^NJDetween practical and scien- 
tific men has begun to fade awa? No'longer jealous 
of each other, they improve by mutual acquaintance. 
The scientist feels that he has a larger audience than 
before : the engineer hopes to derive much practical 
benefit from the college laboratory. 

The principal object of this book is to give some 
hints to aspirants for the profession who have not 
the advantage of a college course. On all sides 
such aspirants may be found in the public schools, in 
the high schools, and in machine shops. On the farms 
as well, many a youth, when he sees the electric lights 
and electric cars in the neighboring village or city, 
feels that he would give all that he is worth to have 
some share in the work of the profession that annihi- 
lates darkness and space. 

The first thing that such should understand is that 
it is an uphill road which they have to travel to 
become electricians. As competitors they will have 
college-bred men, fully as ambitious as themselves, 
and equally willing to do anything, provided it is 
electrical. The advantage of the college training is 
very great, but the lesson taught by the experience 
of successive generations, not only in this country, but 



HOW TO BEGIN. 



in the Old World, is that the poor man's son without 
any advantages of education can work to the front, 
and often passes his better equipped competitor. 
Years of hard work are before such young men, but 
they are years whose like has often been lived through, 
and will be lived through in the future, with ultimate 
attainment of success. 

Assume that a young man of the classes suggested 
above desires to become an electrician. Perhaps the 
first thing to be determined is whether he is ready 
for any kind of work. Taking the class we speak of, 
the first object may be the earning of some wages or 
salary, even if small. In such case it is not too much 
to say that almost any position about an electrical 
works should be acceptable. It is even conceivable 
that a trolley-man, who understands electricity, might 
graduate as an electrician, first being promoted to 
work upon the line, thus entering on some more 
inspiring work than runninga car. Even in attending 
to lamps, in collecting and distributing meter-zincs, 
and in similar work, a satisfaction will be felt in the 
realization of the fact that at least something is being 
learned, and that an apprenticeship to the profession 
is being gone through. 

The question of age comes in. In our schools of 
science the entrance age is often seventeen or eighteen. 
Before entering, the student has to pass an exami- 
nation of more or less scope and severity, which exami- 
nation includes matter appertaining to his proposed 



1G THE AGE FOR BEGINNING. 

profession. This tells us that long before reaching 
the age of seventeen a young man may and should 
begin to study for his chosen profession. But those 
for whom this book is written are not all so young as 
this. Many may be well past the first four lusters of 
a hard-working life. The general moral, nevertheless, 
is obvious. The study may be begun in some sense 
at quite an early age. Those suited for the profession 
will have insensibly worked on such lines, for they 
will have excelled in arithmetic and branches of 
natural science, or at least will have received most 
permanent benefit from them. There is no harm in 
the public-school student trying to give his studies 
and his home work this direction. A scientifically 
disposed boy will find recreation in constructing bat- 
teries and electro-magnets, and perhaps in erecting 
a telegraph line between his home and that of some 
friend. If his home has an electric door-bell, he will 
be the one to keep it in order. His services may be 
in requisition among the neighbors for such things. 
If it is in a boy to become an electrical engineer, he 
will be apt to show it pretty early in life. 

But how is such a book as this to help him ? If he 
looks over its headings it may seem to him that an 
electrician has to be a very accomplished person. 
This is strictly true — true not only of the electrician, 
who deserves to succeed, but true of others as well. 
The first thing most people want to know is the easiest 
road to their desires. You wish to succeed as an 



THE SELF-TAUGHT ENGINEER. 17 

electrician — then your question, and it is a very 
rational one, is, How little is necessary? 

Our book to some extent tries to answer this query. 
Take the sections one by one, and you will find 
that in each the endeavor is to give a clue to the least 
you ought to know. 

In colleges all over the land young men are studying 
for the profession, and a severe four years' course is 
passed as preparation. This book details far less than 
the work of those four years, so the somewhat varied 
items of study and work are not a full course. The 
author's hope is in another direction. It is that, if 
the little work here outlined is faithfully done, the 
little study faithfully performed, and if what is cata- 
logued here is absolutely known, the reader will 
be prepared to enter the field and compete for the top 
rungs of the long ladder, which it may take a life-time 
to ascend. 

If you pick out just what suits your fancy — find that 
chemistry loses variety after a week at it and drop 
it ; know that mathematics will not suit you and do 
not drop them only because you never take them 
up; read physics superficially, avoiding all formulae 
and calculations — you have not got the stuff in you 
to succeed. 

When through with this course, volts and amperes 
and their brethren should be as familiar to you as 
quarts and pounds are to the grocer. This may 
be brought about by practice on calculations of 



18 LEARNING A LITTLE THOROUGHLY. 

circuits ; Ohm's law, in its endless modifications, 
giving great chances for work in this direction. 
Energy, work (mechanical as well as physical units), 
inertia, force should be so ingrained by use in calcu- 
lations and by the habit of referring all machinery 
motions and functions to them as to be a part of your 
nature. Your references to them should be almost 
instinctive. 

This idea should be carried out in all that is de- 
tailed here. Little enough is prescribed — so little, 
that its only hope of utility is that the very short 
course of scientific study here mapped out shall 
become a part of your nature. Take this course and 
compare it with any college course and see how little 
there is of it — so little, that it may be a subject of 
just criticism were one to maintain that an electrician 
should go no further. This is not to be maintained 
by any means. But let a young man by his own ex- 
ertions go thus far, let him become self-educated to 
this extent, and he will not be content to arrest his 
progress when on the border-land of science only. 
He will want to go further, and he will do so. Every 
step of such progress proves the true nature more 
than a year in college on the king's highway to 
knowledge — to knowledge little appreciated because 
so easily gained. 

Enough has been said to indicate the general theory 
of work. If one will carry it out so as to learn a 
little bit very perfectly rather than a great quantity 



INDICATIONS OF CHARACTER. 19 

superficially, a habit will be acquired which will stand 
one in good stead through life. Restrain ambition 
for covering ground. If you will begin slowly and 
thoroughly, you will do better in the end. 

This much will introduce our subject. You think 
of entering a profession created within a comparatively 
few years upon a basis of pure science ; one in which 
the old-time jealousy between practical and theo- 
retical science is happily missing; one in which you 
will have to compete with minds as good and better 
than your own, and far better equipped. The great 
object in life is to acquire contentment. So before 
embarking in the competition satisfy yourself that 
you have the necessary qualifications to be an en- 
gineer ; study your past proclivities and decide 
whether the farm, the store, or the machine-shop 
is not after all a safer field for you than electrical 
engineering. 

Two boys live in a country village. The local 
surveyor is in want of some one to help him survey a 
farm or a lot. He will ask the boys which will help 
him. One offers, with signs of real interest, to 
assist. The other finds a game of foot-ball or of base- 
ball more interesting. Here is at once a clue as to 
which will make the best engineer. Let the same 
two boys live near a railroad. One will know the 
engines by their numbers and will know the charac- 
teristics of the different ones. A new engine will be 
an object of the greatest interest to him. He will 



20 NOTICING LITTLE THINGS. 

note the peculiarities of the tracks — how some are 
rusty and some bright. His mind will work upon the 
interesting question of why a travelled rail does not 
rust even on its sides where the wheels never touch 
it. If a new semaphore is put in, he will not be 
satisfied until he learns its exact uses. A little heap 
of sand by the rail-side will tell him that an engine has 
had trouble in starting, and that the sand-box has been 
opened to drop sand upon the rail. He will examine 
the sand to see what quality it is, and whether it has 
been baked to give it bite. Everything is to be 
investigated and its causes determined. The other 
boy will have a soul above (or below) such trivial 
things. But which boy would you select to make an 
engineer out of? 

It is told of Agassiz that he wished to select an 
assistant from a number of young men. Taking them 
to a window he asked them one by one to tell what 
was there. Some noted only a house opposite, but 
one saw a house, saw that it was made of brick or 
of stone, described the material, and told of the 
general environment of the place. The good observer 
was selected as the assistant. The rejected appli- 
cants received a needed lesson ; they learned that in 
Agassiz's estimation it was the observation of little 
things that indicated the scientific mind. 

The moral of this is briefly told : Use your eyes. 
There is a multitude of things to be seen, if you will 
only look. The great things in any given line may 



THE ART OF OBSERVING. 21 

have been studied and worked out, but there always 
remain a multitude of little things to be investigated. 
Study to let none of them escape you. 

The fire-fly, the glow-worm, the curculio of the 
West Indies are all small things. Yet on them the 
electrical engineer looks with envy and interest. He 
envies them their power of producing waves of 
almost pure light energy ; he envies them their enor- 
mous efficiency as light-producers. They interest him 
because they give some faint suggestion and some 
very definite hope that the time may come when he 
will be able to light houses at a less reckless expend- 
iture than that of two and a" half or three watts to a 
candle-power. 

A man who knows little hates to be forced to dis- 
play his ignorance by being asked questions, while 
he who knows is always willing to respond to inquiries. 
Yet just in proportion to his knowledge, in proportion 
to the exact training which his mind has received, 
will he distinguish between sensible and idle questions. 
The mind of scientific bent wants to know every- 
thing, and all things cannot be ascertained by 
observation only. Questions must be asked, but of 
whom ? Here again the natural qualifications will 
be shown. The born student will first propound 
his questions to his books or to those of some 
library, and if books do not tell him, he will not rest 
until he finds out in some way his point. His ques- 
tions will be sensible ones — his own attempts to find 



22 ASKING AND ANSWERING QUESTIONS. 



out for himself will insure this. He may ask them 
of one who knows ; he may write to some journal 
which answers queries. Ignorance should cause 
restlessness until the desired information is ob- 
tained. 

The reciprocal of what is outlined above is the 
willingness to impart our knowledge. If there is 
any one thing which shows what is worse than a 
limited intellect, it is the unwillingness to tell the 
little we do know in the way of science to those less 
informed. In this direction the mind should open 
for every one. Nowhere is candor more essential 
than in the field of science. In later life one may 
find out things which would be of value to profes- 
sional men if published or made known. Then it is 
a duty to communicate them. But even in youth, 
the one who naturally helps along other inquirers 
less advanced than himself shows the true scien- 
tific bias. Conceal nothing in science. Secretive- 
ness in those matters marks a one-sided character 
whose future prosperity may be doubted. To-day 
Cavendish is regarded as almost a criminal, because 
he concealed the valuable results of his researches in 
electricity. A miser in science is a sad anomaly. 

It is definitely certain that we all have our indi- 
vidual characteristics. Some excellent minds would 
be utterly miserable in the engineering field, but 
there is no greater error than the falling into one- 
sidedness of character. An engineer should be an 



ONE-SIDEDNESS AND OPENNESS. 23 

"all-round man." He has to deal with human na- 
ture and with the luminiferous ether at one and the 
same time. If from the beginning a young man 
shuts himself up within himself, never opens his soul 
to any one, and works away in secrecy, he will ruin 
his chances of success, for a one-sided man is the 
last one who should adopt the profession of which 
we are speaking. 

The writer has now in mind a young man who de- 
veloped early in life a great talent for mechanics. 
His talent was fostered by his family — very prop- 
erly, one would suppose. But with it was an accom- 
paniment all too frequent — a desire to work alone, 
and a repugnance to companionship in his pursuits. 
This should have been combated but was not. 
The young man has become a recluse, only at home 
in his machine-shop, doing nothing for humanity, 
unknown to the world, a victim to one-sidedness. 
Another instance is within the writer's knowledge. 
It concerns again a born mechanic, a man who can 
do anything with tools, and who is accomplished in 
other ways. But him, too, a solitary life and one- 
sidedness have selected as a victim. He is devoted 
to his work, reads little, and does not do anything 
like what he should with the natural gifts which he 
possesses. It is evident that in both these cases 
rigorous measures should have been taken early in 
life, and both men should have been made to study 
literature, languages, or anything that would break 



24 COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

up their monotony of thought. It really seems that 
too great an aptitude for mechanics is as hurtful as 
too little. 

For an engineer is concerned with the larger 
things of science. His business is to see that an 
electric plant is properly put up. A badly laced 
belt will give endless trouble. Buckled or warped 
grate-bars make proper firing much more difficult. 
He must have an eye for all these things. He may 
invent better grate-bars, he may lead his belt-lacing 
in a new and original way, but this does not say 
that he must personally spend his time in a machine- 
shop. His business is to be the Napoleon of his 
works or station — he must see that others do their 
work, and must understand each man's work, but he 
must not undertake to do it for them. Hence a 
great aptitude for lathe-work and operative me- 
chanics must be balanced by a broadening of the 
mind and by the power of taking a comprehensive 
view of things. The examples just cited seem to 
have lacked this comprehensiveness. A man who 
can work to perfection on a hand-lathe — who can 
make a small and inadequate machine-lathe do work 
it was not made for — who can file up a true prism — 
may be proud of his skill, but he has only gone 
half-way to the goal of engineering. 

A quality or characteristic to be avoided is sensi- 
tiveness. Sometimes, unfortunately, you may feel 
obliged to conceal your ignorance, and in general to 



THE NEW ORDER OF THINGS. 25 

be so sensitive about showing it as to be unwilling 
to ask your way out of it is bad enough. But far 
worse than this is it when it allies itself with vanity. 
When you are asked something w T hich you do not 
know say, "I will look it up," if you are capable of 
doing so ; if not, say, " I do not know," and be done 
with it, but do not weary the soul of your inter- 
rogator by trying to conceal your ignorance and 
evading the question. 

At the present time, and the writer has definite 
knowledge of what he is saying, young men in all 
parts of the country are constructing electrical appa- 
ratus. It is not saying too much to assert that a 
corps of electrical engineers, a sort of militia of the 
science, are drilling on all sides of us. In old times 
a young man given to such experimenting would ask 
the wildest questions about electrical things, but 
recently a very marked change has come. Definite 
information is now wanted. A dynamo is to be 
built for given amperage and voltage, and any ques- 
tions about it refer to definite figures. In old times 
the question would be, how to build a dynamo for 
experimental purposes — as if that meant anything. 
Now the questions are, how to wind it for a given 
potential, and what its amperage will be. 

Good work is being done. Many of the young 
men thus occupied are unable to go to college, and 
are, of course, at a disadvantage, if they adopt elec- 
trical engineering as a profession. But they have at 



26 IDLENESS. 



least the satisfaction of feeling that the profession is 
constantly widening, that there will be more and 
more positions, and that any success which they do 
attain will be deserved. It is for such young men 
that one's interest is most excited, for they will in 
times to come be the backbone of the profession, if 
they work up from the ranks. 

Ruskin holds that there are two faults which are 
fatal to the character — idleness and cruelty. What 
we have to say here need not touch on the evils of 
cruelty. The highest aims of science are beneficent, 
and electricity is employed to alleviate the troubles 
of life. But idleness — that is the deadly sin of the 
professions. 

Idleness commits all crimes — it murders, steals 
and lies. The idle electrician, not heeding details of 
his work, is the cause of a leak in a distribution 
plant, and a man is shocked to death, which is mur- 
der. It steals. An engineer is too idle to calculate 
out dimensions of everything in an electric plant ; too 
small a boiler is bought, which has to be replaced at 
heavy expense by another. The loss to the electric 
works' owners represents the steal. It lies. A dy- 
namo is to be calculated. A rough instead of an 
accurate computation is made, and the dynamo falls 
short. The lie here is measured in deficiency of 
volts or of amperes. Its criminality is measured by 
the monetary loss incurred. 

Every bit of careless measurement executed in 



PERSEVERANCE IN WORK. 27 



the laboratory, considered in this light, involves a lie 
and a probable theft. 

The one bit of ethics that applies to professional 
life is really all of ethics — it is conscientiousness. 
Be conscientious. Do not be guided in your work 
by the motive of honesty alone. Go a step beyond 
this and be more than honest — be the superlative of 
honest, be honorable. Let your conscience give 
you a diploma of self-approval that will outweigh 
any college degree. 

Another quality is to be looked for — persistence. 
It is one thing to read in a book short directions 
for making an induction coil, but try it. Wind 
your secondary out of No. 36 wire, which breaks 
if you look at it ; keep shellacking it and testing its 
continuity layer by layer, and, when done, see if 
energy and interest enough is left to finish the coil. 
You make special arrangements at your school to 
study chemistry or physics. A week or a month suf- 
fices to make you weary of your task. Does this 
indicate a suitable character to build an engi- 
neer on ? 

It is well that there is some basis for judging of 
character and of adaptability for a professional life, 
for it is sad to see a young man without taste for the 
profession trying to struggle along in company not 
suited to him. Indolence, want of persistence, 
natural selection of the easy and rejection of the dif- 
ficult things encountered in study indicate qualities 
which are fatal. 



FITNESS TO BEGIN WORK. 



Do not then attempt to enter ranks captained by 
such men as Sir William Thomson, Elihu Thomp- 
son, Brush and Tesla, without letting the dignity of 
the company be reflected from yourself. If not pa- 
tient and persevering, if not naturally inclined 
towards mathematics, do not try to become a mem- 
ber of the profession. A college training to some 
extent compensates even for the want of natural 
aptitude, — but you will have to compete with men of 
high natural aptitude supplemented by the best 
college education. 

This much will suffice for the general aspect of 
the subject. If a young man is a natural observer 
of everything, if he is of open nature, willing to 
impart knowledge as well as to receive it, and of 
mechanical and mathematical tastes, he may feel 
fitted to begin work in the profession of electrician. 
He must be industrious and without dread of work 
It is easy to profess to be so, but it is not so easy to 
answer to expectations in this regard. The only 
way to know whether a man is industrious or not is 
to try him, and there is nothing better than mathe- 
matics as a test-object. In modern science math- 
ematics are everything, and reasonable familiarity 
with them is essential. 

This gives a reason for plunging at once into our 
subject and speaking of mathematics and of their 
place in the course of study to be followed. 



29 



CHAPTER II. 

Mathematics. 

arithmetic — practice afforded in mechanics — 
powers of ten and fractional exponents 
— logarithms — algebra geometry trigo- 
nometry mensuration — ohm's law mathe- 
matics of chemistry — analytical geometry 

— CALCULUS — CONCLUSION. 

What advice can be given about the dreaded 
mathematics ? Edison, working up from a train-boy 
to his present position, claims to be no mathemati- 
cian. You will do well enough if you get as high as 
he is, — so your first care may be to follow his 
example in one respect and let mathematics 
alone. Reparation will follow such a course, 
for you certainly will not follow his exam- 
ple in anything else if you start with such 
principles. Do you not suppose that Faraday en- 
vied J. Clerk Maxwell when he went to him for 
mathematics to elucidate his discoveries ? Read 
Maxwell's life and realize that he laid the mathe- 
matical basis of much of modern electricity, and see if 
you are not cured of your distaste for mathematics. 



30 ARITHMETIC AND ALGEBRA. 



Dislike for mathematics, like specialized dislikes in 
general, is usually a form of laziness. 

The opening question given above is easily an- 
swered : the advice to be given is to study mathe- 
matics or drop electricity. The further you go in 
mathematics, the better, but here also go slowly. 

Arithmetic you say you know. Well, before going 
further, review your old school books and get your 
arithmetic once more at your fingers' ends. Then 
start algebra. If you think it too hard, try as an ex- 
periment to add a, b and c together by algebra, and 
7, 8 and 9 together by arithmetic, and see whether 
algebra is not sometimes easier than its sister 
science. In algebra go through simple equations 
before you take up physics. 

Henceforward you will have practice in arith- 
metic and algebra in your other studies. In physics 
the change from one thermometric scale to another, 
problems in falling bodies, problems in inertia, me- 
chanical powers and the like will exercise you in 
arithmetic and in elementary algebra. 

There will be a reciprocation. The physics or 
mechanics you are studying will take on a new mean- 
ing, and at the same time your familiarity with your 
mathematics will increase. 

Perhaps the reader has gone through calculus, and 
deems this very elementary. If our book throughout 
can but appear equally simple, its end will have been 
achieved. And many a college graduate, who has 



POWERS OF TEN. 31 

passed in calculus, would fail sadly in deducing the 
law of falling bodies, though only simple arith- 
metic is involved in it. So do not criticise this book 
for not going far enough, exalted reader ; but feeling 
that you have gone far beyond us in mathematics, 
pick out half a dozen elementary propositions in 
physics and see if you can prove them. 

To return to our student of arithmetic and ele- 
mentary algebra. He will note two peculiarities as 
he advances into electrical physics, and as he takes 
up the theory of dimensions of physical units. 

One of these is the use of powers often. Instead 
of saying that a volt is 100,000,000 electro magnetic 
units in value, we say that it is 10 8 such units, and 
instead of calling v, the velocity of propagation of 
ether waves, 30,000,000,000 cm., we may express it in 
powers of ten, as being 3xl0 10 cm., and v 2 may be 
expressed in full as 900,000,000,000,000,000,000 cm., 
or in powers of ten, as 9xl0 20 cm. The more 
compact method is certainly in every way su- 
perior, and you must learn how to calculate in pow- 
ers of ten. Five minutes' study tells you how to do 
it — perhaps five hours or five months will be re- 
quired to enable you to use without slip the results 
of the five minutes' study. So practice hard upon 
powers of ten, and never let a calculation involving 
them pass without doing it over yourself.* 

The other peculiarity is used in dimensions. It is 
*See "Arithmetic of Electricity," page 118. 



FRACTIONAL EXPONENTS. 



the use of fractional exponents. This is very simple 
— but try how many of your acquaintances can tell 
you precisely what is meant by the exponent 2 
Taking the expression 11^, see if any of them can 
reduce it to its true value. You will discern an 
analogy with powers of ten, in the fact that the 
utility of both methods of calculation is greatest in 
operations of multiplication and division of identical 
symbols or of numbers in general. So as regards 
operations with fractional exponents you must 
learn how to multiply and divide any numbers or any 
identical symbols followed by fractional exponents. 
Multiplication is done by adding the exponents, as 
if they were common fractions, reducing the sum 
to the lowest terms, and applying the new exponent to 
the original symbol. Thus M§xMi gives M^, or 
M 2 . For division you subtract in like manner the 
exponent of the divisor from that of the dividend. 
Nothing could be simpler, but practice it whenever 
it occurs, and see if you can deduce by simple inspec- 
tion the dimensions L T of resistance from poten- 
tial difference M^ L*/T and current intensity 
M* iJ/T, by dividing one by the other. 

Logarithms should next be taken up, and if yeu 
can persuade yourself to do it, study their theory in 
your algebra. But learn well how to use them, for 
after all they are an instrument for your purposes — 
their theory does not immediately concern you. 
Make a point of using them frequently. If you do 



LOGARITHMS— GEOMETRY. 33 

not think them a means of facilitating calculation, 
if they seem to you merely an additional load, try 
to extract the fifth root of a number without using 
logarithms, and then in a couple of minutes do it by 
logarithms, and see which is the easier. 

Learn thoroughly how to determine the charac- 
teristics of your logarithms. Do not leave them for 
a subject of guess work, or entire omission, but 
always put them in, whether needed or not. It is a 
very good habit to fall into. 

Now you can go on in algebra as far as you choose 
— the further, the better. Skip nothing. The appar- 
ently or probably useless portions worked out will 
give you the best possible practice. When reason- 
ably familiar with equations and logarithms, you have 
got your tools for attacking much of your subject. 

Even in the beginning of algebra there is matter 
that is not applicable directly to your work. Such 
are the least common multiple and the greatest com- 
mon divisor. It is better not to skip them. It is not 
merely rules of algebra that are to be learned, but 
familiarity with its operations is necessary, and this 
is best acquired by taking in everything as you pro- 
gress in its study. 

Of geometry a great deal is not directly useful. 
Indeed geometry, as far as the proofs of propositions 
are concerned, has direct application in very little 
work of any kind. It tells the why and wherefore of 
things, and gives the proofs of certain propositions ; 



34 TRIGONOMETRY AND MENSURATION. 

but what is really of most practical use is the propo- 
sition itself— not the proof of it. Thus you may 
very contentedly go on calculating the area of trian- 
gles and the volume of pyramids, without troubling 
yourself about the proof of the rules you use, which 
proofs you may find in plane and solid geometry 
respectively. 

There is one proposition you should be very fa- 
miliar with and which you should put to frequent 
use by way of practice. This is the rule of the 
square of the hypothenuse — the famous pons asi- 
norum, or "bridge of asses." The areas of triangles 
and similar things come under practical geometry, or, 
more strictly speaking, under mensuration, which 
you should also know. 

Trigonometry must be studied so as to understand 
the functions of an arc, the sine, cosine and others. 
It is not necessary for the solution of triangles to be 
learned, but the functions must be thoroughly mas- 
tered. This will be a very small affair. But it 
would be excellent practice to solve a few triangles, 
just to get practice in logarithms and logarithmic 
functions. How to express one function in terms of 
the others and of the radius must be worked up, 
which really amounts to little more than the solution 
of right-angled triangles. 

Mensuration must be learned, and as applied to 
ordinary cases it is very simple. It will be very ad- 
vantageous to learn by heart a dozen good rules, 



GENERAL PRACTICE. 35 

such as those giving the area, of a circle, the super- 
ficies of a sphere, the volume of the same, the 
volume of a cylinder and the like. Then come the 
most convenient ratios of mensuration, such as con- 
tained in the statement that symmetrical surfaces 
vary in area as the squares of their similar linear 
parts or functions. There are two or three of these 
which should be thoroughly learned and practiced 
upon. 

There is in electricity proper one little bit of 
mathematics which should be treated here specially. 
It is a simple algebraic formula of only three quan- 
tities, but the changes are rung on it ad infinitum. 
This is Ohm's law. It has never been deduced, and 
is based entirely on experimental proof. It should 
be practiced with in all ways. Three principal 
forms can be given it, and it can also be expressed by 
proportions of several kinds, as thus, the current 
varies directly with the electro-motive force and in- 
directly with the resistance. This embodies two 
proportions. Practice with Ohm's law should in- 
clude operations with such proportional or ratio 
statements of it as the one given above. 

You may also work up the mathematics of chem- 
istry, mention of which is made under chemistry. 
But for the electrician it is better to treat chemistry 
as a whole, and to keep its mathematics with itself, 
and not take them up separately. The study of an- 
alytical geometry, of calculus and of the higher 



36 ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY. 

mathematics in general may be postponed. They 
should be a part of one's equipment, but the practical, 
self-educated man will have to omit any ex- 
haustive study of them in his earlier work, unless he 
has a very strong bent towards the exact sciences. 
Of course the college graduate will have gone 
through them, but even he, in many cases, will have 
but an imperfect acquaintance with calculus. 

But analytical geometry must be attacked to a 
certain extent, comparable to the case of trigonome- 
try as we have cited it. Just as the functions of an 
arc must be understood, so must the method of loca- 
ting points in analytical geometry be understood. 
For every characteristic curve, and there are legions 
of them, of many types, from the curves of dynamos 
to the curves on the steam-engine indicator card, 
every such curve is drawn subject to the laws of de- 
scriptive geometry. The axes of ordinates and ab- 
scisses are the reference lines. Usually rectangular 
co-ordinates are used, but in angular motion polar 
co-ordinates may come into use, so something should 
be known of them. 

The above outline is open to severe criticism as 
giving a very meagre allowance of mathematics. 
Yet if the amount detailed is learned thoroughly, the 
electrician will do very well as far as ordinary work 
is concerned. Mathematics are something like his- 
tory — they cannot be learned from epitomes or 
abridgments. So it would be better for the aspir- 



LEARNING A LITTLE THOROUGHLY. 



ant to go much further than we have indicated — to 
go through the whole of a text-book on algebra, and 
to work up analytical geometry and calculus. It 
may be feared that this recommendation will bear 
but little fruit. 

Edison, with his avowed ignorance of mathematics, 
Faraday applying to Clerk Maxwell to work up the 
mathematics of a subject for him, — such examples as 
these may comfort one. But there are very few of 
us who do not feel a longing for greater advances in 
the science, and no failing is more felt than one's 
deficiency in mathematics. So the student should 
do his best to get beyond the very elementary 
schedule given in these pages. 



CHAPTER III. 

Physics. 

heat and light examples of application of 

physics bad practices in distribution of 

light reflection of wasted rays econo- 
my of the incandescent lamp mechanics 

value of definitions energy theory 

of dimensions — methods of study experi- 
menting physics without apparatus. 

The physics of the present day differs from that of 
the last generation, as it has taken a more precise 
aspect, especially in its divisions, and has become 
of less general aspect. From the practical point of 
view it is not necessary for the electrician to study 
physics any more deeply than it is to be hoped that 
his natural inclinations would lead him to. But it 
would seem absurd for an engineer dealing with 
heat and light to know the physics of these two 
branches only and to be ignorant of the physics of 
sound. So we will assume that a good manual of 
physics will be read from beginning to end by our 
student. Of special importance he should re-read and 
study light and heat, for much of his future work 
may involve the utilization of heat energy and the 



DISTRIBUTION OF LIGHT. 39 

dispensing of light energy. He should know how to 
conduct photometric observations, and understand 
the principles so well as to be able to improvise a 
shadow photometer from a sheet of paper and a 
ruler or walking-stick. 

As he will be concerned with the economical sup- 
ply of light, he should know something of the relative 
transparency of glass. After expending many watts 
of energy on an arc lamp or fifty watts on an incan- 
descent lamp, let his studies in this direction teach 
him the absurdity, except for special purposes of 
using an opaline globe or a frosted bulb, involving a 
loss of fifty to eighty per cent, of his energy. 

When the arc light was first introduced, one of the 
sapient ways of producing an approximation to 
evenness of light consisted in placing the lamps 
high in air, 250 feet perhaps above the earth's sur- 
face. The student from his physics can learn how 
enormous was the waste of light in this case, the 
intensity of the illumination varying inversely with 
the square of the distance. He will see the impor- 
tance on account of the same law of the inverse 
squares of distributing arc lamps evenly and of not 
putting them in pairs or in groups. He will find at- 
tempts made to save the light which is radiated sky- 
wards, reflectors being used to reflect it back to the 
earth. He will from his physics learn how effica- 
cious this plan is in each case. A white-painted sur- 
face will be found to be of little use ; possibly he 



40 PHYSICS OF HEAT. 

may have a chance to try some better materials, such 
as totally reflecting prisms. 

It is evident that knowledge of light may be very 
useful, and it is also evident that examples for criti- 
cism may be very easily found. 

Measure the filament of an incandescent lamp and 
multiply it by ten ; this will give you say six inches of 
filament. Does it not give one a sort of shock to 
realize that an entire horse-power is used up in keep- 
ing this little bit of material at a white heat ? Think 
what it would cost to forge a horseshoe under simi- 
lar economy. Is there not room for some brilliant 
genius to abolish with one stroke of invention and 
research the whole miserable instrumentality of in- 
candescent lamps? Luminescence and other phases 
of the physics of light may give some clue to this. 

You may yet be called upon to use and to supply 
heat energy as such. Dynamos are driven by some 
kind of heat engines. Our present sources of light, 
unfortunately, are simply hot solid matter. The 
working electrician is therefore very much con- 
cerned with the utilization of heat energy. He 
should understand its laws, the relation between heat 
and light, and between luminescence and incan- 
descence, radiation, convection and conduction The 
heating of a conductor by a current, electric 
welding, and many other engineering topics must be 
studied in the light of the physics of heat. 

As to the other branches, they may be treated as 
objects of reading rather than of study. 



MECHANICS. 41 



Mechanics, often taken as a division of physics, is 
of direct importance. The conservation of energies, 
the relation of force to energy, the object of ex- 
pressing energy in foot-pounds, why a unit essentially 
compound, such as pounds, is taken as a unit of 
force, which latter is a simple entity, the change of 
potential energy into kinetic energy, the change of 
one kind of potential energy into another, the doing 
of work by part of these changes and its absorbtion 
by the reciprocal parts, the apparent unreality of 
work thus defined, — all these things are in mechanics. 
No one is more constantly referring to work and 
energy than the electrician. Mechanics is a 
necessity for him. 

It would even be well for him to write out different 
definitions of force, work and energy, and to learn by 
heart the best and most satisfactory ones he can find, 
so that without thinking he can give out the defi- 
nitions. In any science it is excellent to have step- 
ping-stones, or points of departure of fixed nature, 
and such could be given by the definitions above 
suggested. You may easily add more to them. 

You will nowhere have abetter chance to learn the 
value of a good definition, and also its rarity, than in 
physics and mechanics. 

Take the case of a company selling light by the 
lamp-hour. Calculate how such a company would be 
affected by the introduction of a low resistance motor 



42 MECHANICS OF ELECTRICITY. 

in circuit with a number of lamps. Mechanics, giv- 
ing the relations of energies, gives the basis for the 
solution. How the introduction of resistance coils 
may save a battery from running down and at the 
same time may waste energy, how every foot of a 
conductor is a seat of energy, how the energy in 
each foot of the conductor may be ascertained, the 
waste of energy incident to the necessary use of a 
resistance in circuit with a constant potential arc 
lamp, — all such topics relate to the important doc- 
trine of the conservation of energy, and, while they 
are electrical in aspect, are actually questions of me- 
chanics. 

You should learn mechanics thoroughly, and it 
is better in mechanics especially to learn a little 
very well, rather than to get a mere reading acquaint- 
ance with a great deal. The learning a little thor- 
oughly is not so simple as it may seem. You should 
learn to work with %mv 2 , as with a most familiar 
character. The little well learned will be the incen- 
tive to more reading, and the foundation it gives will 
make such reading far more profitable than it would 
otherwise be. 

You may have a taste for mathematics, which ex- 
pression often indicates that in reality the posses- 
sor of such alleged taste is not too lazy to study. If 
you have this quality, whether it takes the form of 
taste or of industry, the theory of dimensions will 
greatly help you in studying mechanics. By the use 



INDUCTIVE PHYSICS. 43 

of the wonderfully ingenious theory of dimensions 
of physical quantities you can trace the relationship 
of all the units to each other. 

You will find the mathematical treatment now un- 
derlying all physics, and dimensions you will see used 
perhaps even more in the physics of electricity than 
in mechanics proper. In other branches of the 
science they are less used than in these two. 

We have used the term physics of electricity, indi- 
cating thereby the treatment of its theory as a whole 
without restriction to one part of the science. Most 
books on electricity treat some specific branch. 
This remark may serve to introduce a suggestion 
that the manuals of physics give a treatment of the 
subject that will be of value in presenting a unitary 
view of the subject as a whole. Electricity, as 
treated in Daniell's "Physics,"may be read and studied 
with benefit by any one. 

How shall physics be studied ? It depends on 
the student and teacher, if there is one. It may 
be studied by experiment on the inductive system. 
This is the popular way at present, and for a very 
good reason is accepted as the best method. The 
very good reason is the following : The trouble with 
the rising generation is that they have not sufficient 
acquaintance with or realization of the real or con- 
crete world. To them everything in physics is apt 
to appear as an abstraction. When studying heat 
it is hardly too much to say that conduction of 



44 PHYSICS OF COMMON THINGS. 

heat does not present itself to them as the same thing 
that makes one drop a poker that has been left in 
the fire. Being in the realms of science and studied 
as such, the heat of the books of physics, they think, 
must be something peculiar and unfamiliar. But it 
is not — it is the same thing as we meet in every-day 
life. 

By teaching the science inductively and letting 
the experiments tell the laws, and by letting the 
pupils perform the experiments themselves, they lose 
this abstract conception of physics. Thus taught it 
becomes a real every-day thing. 

If you examine some of the newer school manuals, 
this treatment will be very conspicuous in it. The 
deduction might seem to be that those for whom this 
book is written should do the same — should study 
physics inductively and by experiment. 

But it is fair to assume that those who honor this 
little work by perusing it, and making it of use to 
them in their life's work, have a special aptitude for 
science. They will probably have always handled 
tools, and will not be apt to take so abstract a view 
of things. And then the question of time comes in. 
It takes many long hours to work up physics by ex- 
periment. If the time can be afforded, try experi- 
ments in physics as you go along. The ground can 
be covered by the use of very little apparatus. 
" Physics without apparatus " has now been quite 
highly developed. If the time is not at your dis- 



EXPERIMENTING IN PHYSICS. 45 

posal, never mind. You can learn physics by study 
and reading alone. 

One reason for rather discouraging too many ex- 
periments in physics is that work in construction 
may be more practically applied to electric apparatus. 
Yet here the error of being too practical may be 
fallen into. A one-sided man, we have said before, is 
imperfect. Some few experiments can be tried as 
you read and study physics, and they will take the 
guise of recreation. In sound the experiments in 
loops and nodes and harmonic vibration may be 
performed very nicely with a wire stretched across a 
table over two blocks of wood as bridges. Vibrating 
flames may be observed with a small looking-glass 
twisted back and forth in the hand. A square of 
glass held down on a spool by the thumb will serve 
for a Chladni plate. In heat the simplest possible 
arrangements will serve to show the expansion of 
solids, liquids and gases. A blacksmith putting on 
a wagon-tire shows the first of these. In light, 
shadow photometry may be worked up with consid- 
erable advantage as being of direct applicability to 
electrical work. A few hours will be well spent in 
making a skeleton of experiments to carry your liv- 
ing body of physics. But the bulk of physics you 
must get from the books. 

Do not try to cut mathematics out of it. Wher- 
ever a formula is given, remorselessly hunt it down 
and work it out to the last point. Keep dimensions in 



40 MATHEMATICS OF PHYSICS. 

mind, and over and over again go through their evo- 
lution. Then, when you reach electricity, you will 
feel at home. It will appear how a watt is a unit of 
rate of energy, and the relation of electrical to me- 
chanical units will be made clear; without dimen- 
sions you can never see how these relations are 
deduced. In after-life you may forget the exact de- 
duction of dimensions, but enough will stick to give 
electrical and mechanical units a meaning which 
they would never otherwise acquire. 



47 



CHAPTER IV. 

Chemistry. 

difficulties of experimenting the coal-fire 

and the plant the reaction of the coal- 
fire — its equation and what it tells — 

equations the short hand of chemistry 

stoichiometry experiments precautions 

battery chemicals thermo-chemistry 

chemical recreations books outlines of 

a chemical course how to read value of 

a teacher. 

There are a number of books treating of simple ex- 
periments in physics. The field in this department 
is pretty well covered. Every now and then the 
inquiry comes up for a book devoted to simple chem- 
ical experiments. This book has not yet been 
written — at least a satisfactory one has not. The 
reason is not hard to find. Chemistry is a science 
that admits of no trifling. Simple experiments in it 
are very attractive, but a series of such soon loses 
variety, and they become monotonous to all but the 
real student. An electrician should know the theory 



4$ CHEMICAL REACTIONS vSEEN EVERYWHERE. 

of chemistry, as his science is closely linked there- 
with, but unfortunately the theory of chemistry, 
unfixed in the mind by any experimental work, seems 
very unreal and abstract. 

Chemical work can often be carried on at school 
to a point where some idea may be formed of what 
qualities a gas may present, of what a reaction be- 
tween two substances is, of the actions of acids on 
metals. If the experimenter, knowing nothing of 
chemistry, begins to experiment without supervision, 
it is merely a question of time when he will blow 
himself up. 

This makes studying chemistry by experiment at 
least of doubtful expediency if it has to be done 
alone. But can chemical operations be seen other- 
wise ? They can be seen everywhere. One of the 
highest amnities in all chemistry is being constantly 
satisfied in a violent reaction seen in every house. 
The plant, with intense chemical force, given it by 
the sun's actinic rays, is doing the reverse and un- 
doing the combination silently and without violent 
exhibition of its powers. Are not these chemical ex- 
periments available for purposes of study ? 

For what takes place in the hard coal-fire, which is 
the first reaction spoken of ? The coal is principally 
carbon, one of the elements, and carbon has an 
intense affinity for another element, oxygen. ■ About 
one-fifth of the air is oxygen. In spite of its affinity 
for oxygen, carbon will not unite therewith below a 



THE CHEMISTRY OF A FIRE. 49 

red-heat ; when heated in the air, it combines with 
oxygen. Chemical energy is satisfied or disappears, 
and heat and light energy are produced. The coal, 
in other words, burns. Now take on faith two state- 
ments. Twelve pounds of coal combine with thirty- 
two pounds, of oxygen. This ratio, for complete 
combustion, always and invariably holds. Next, if 
the carbon and oxygen were both in the gaseous 
state, it would be found that the carbon would have 
half the volume of the oxygen. As a species of 
chemical short-hand, twelve units by weight of car- 
bon are indicated by C. Sixteen parts by weight of 
oxygen are indicated by O. These same symbols 
indicate equal volumes of the elements in question 
when in the gaseous state. Now write as follows : 
C+20=C0 2 . 

This says that one volume (in the gaseous state) 
of carbon weighing twelve units combines with two 
volumes (in the gaseous state) of oxygen weighing 
(2X16=32) thirty-two units. The product is (12+ 
32=41) forty-four units by weight of another sub- 
stance called carbon dioxide, or, more generally, 
carbonic acid gas. It also tells a chemist that the 
volume of the new gas is equal to that of the 
oxygen. 

This is one of the dreaded chemical reactions that 
seem such a mystery to many. They are really a 
great convenience ; the eight characters of the equa- 
tion tell as much as can be told in as many lines of 



50 SAFE EXPERIMENTS. 

type, and the common coal-fire gives us the chem- 
ical reaction expressed in the equation. The pro- 
spective engineer should give himself a thorough 
course of chemical equations, and should work up 
the proportions they express. This species of calcu- 
lation or chemical arithmetic is given in the text- 
books and should be learned, or at least the under- 
lying theory outlined above should be well mastered. 

Too much is not asked in this. A person with the 
least aptitude for mathematics will find no trouble in 
it. One fond of mathematics will take much the 
same interest in stoichiometry, as the arithmetic of 
chemistry is termed, as a chess-player does in chess 
problems. 

It will be easy to perform a few experiments in 
safety by avoiding the use of certain chemicals, such 
as strong acids, and by avoiding certain causes of 
explosion. But it would be very hard to adequately 
state in words the various precautions which a prac- 
ticed chemist instinctively takes. Even in heating 
a liquid in a test-tube he never points its opening at 
himself or at others for fear the contents may spurt 
out. In adding a chemical to it he follows the same 
rule. If two liquids of different specific gravities are 
in the tube, he always shakes them up thoroughly be- 
fore heating, to guard against explosive ebullition. 
It is thus all through chemistry. Little details of 
manipulation distinguish the good from the bad 
operator. The electrical engineer cannot well afford 



FORMULAS OF CHEMICALS. 51 



time to learn all these minutiae. If he has the time 
and facilities, he will of course try to learn as much 
as possible. 

But let him study the formulae of his own chem- 
icals. If he is using gravity cells, he must not be 
content to throw in what to him is nothing but a 
" blue-stone." Let him know it as cupric sulphate ; 
let him learn its formula CuS0 4 , 5H 2 0, and find 
what each symbol stands for, and for what relative 
weight of its respective element. Distinguish be- 
tweeen this compound and cupric oxide, CuO, of 
the Lalande-Chaperon couple. Dissolve some Cu- 
S0 4 , 5H 2 in water, immerse a piece of polished iron 
in it, and see the deposit of copper, and realize that 
some of the iron has stepped into the copper's place, 
and has formed one of the iron sulphates. 

The many batteries in use will give a good field for 
studying chemistry, and the mere handling of a 
chemical salt, such as sal ammoniac (ammonium 
chloride), if its formula and constitution are made to 
go with it in the mind, will give to chemistry the de- 
sired reality. 

Next comes thermo-chemistry, which is simply the 
laws of the relations of chemical change to energy. 
While nothing is more interesting than the working 
out of the voltage corresponding to chemical 
changes, such is generally rather an ornamental or 
perhaps accessory branch of the study. The general 
principles of thermo-chemistry, which may be stated 



52 CHEMICAL FORMULA. 

in very few words, should certainly be known. To 
give the aspect of unity, it would seem preferable to 
take thermo-chemistry as a part of the conservation 
of energy. The engineer should have very fixed 
ideas on this subject of the conservation of energy, 
for his profession is concerned almost entirely in 
converting one into another and in distributing the 
energy he has shaped. Thermo-chemistry relates to 
the heat units produced by coal, the watts produced 
by a battery, and the voltage developed therein. It 
is clear that acquaintance with it should be a part of 
his stock of knowledge. 

What is said in relation to chemistry may be taken 
as implying that the engineer need not go very 
deeply into this science, and such is the most prac- 
tical view of the case. Chemical formulae find no 
part in the every-day work of the electrician. But 
none the less should as much of chemistry as is out- 
lined above be studied. It is depressing to one's 
moral nature to think of a presumable electrician 
using primary and storage batteries, working with 
currents whose units are based on voltametric work, 
yet knowing nothing of chemistry. 

There is, however, a chemistry without apparatus, 
which can be used as a species of instructive recrea- 
tion. A number of experiments in it can be traced 
up in the literature of the science. Thus roll or 
twist a strip of paper into an allumette or gas- 
lighter. Holding its large end pinched between the 



CHEMISTRY WITHOUT APPARATUS. 53 

finger and thumb, and holding it pointing down- 
wards, light the lower end. As the flame works its 
way up towards the hand, a black cinder is left 
nearly of the shape of the allumette. The flame is 
producing destructive distillation as well as combus- 
tion of the paper. A white smoke which is pro- 
duced by the distillation issues from the lower end. 
Now apply a match to the lower end, and you can 
light the escaping gaseous and other matter escap- 
ing therefrom just as you can light gas at a gas- 
burner. 

This gives an excellent illustration of the action of 
heat on organic matter and of combustion. Nothing 
could be simpler or more demonstrative. This is 
chemistry without apparatus. 

Again put some sodium bicarbonate, which is 
common baking soda, into a pickle bottle and 
pour on it some vinegar (acetic acid). It effer- 
vesces, and carbon dioxide gas is given off. Attach 
a match to a bit of wire, get the match burning 
well, and lower it into the bottle. The gas extin- 
guishes it as effectually as would water. Try to 
pour some of the gas into a tumbler, as you pour 
water, and test its presence in the tumbler by the 
match experiment. 

This again is chemistry without apparatus. Noth- 
ing in the laboratory could be more conclusive. 

Write out the reaction for this experiment. Find 
the formulae of acetic acid and of sodium bicarbonate, 



REACTIONS. 



and put them in the first member of the equation. 
When they react upon each other, sodium acetate, 
water and carbon dioxide gas are produced. Put 
these in the second member, and then see if your 
equation balances — that is to say, see if the same 
symbols and if the same number of each appear 
on both sides of the equality sign. 

The equation for destructive distillation of paper 
cannot well be written out, because the reaction 
varies and is imperfectly known. 

The actions of acids and alkalies on test-paper or 
vegetable colors can be easily tried with litmus paper 
or red cabbage infusion. Use vinegar for the acid, and 
ammonia for the alkali. A few cents' worth of com- 
mon hydrochloric acid will give more satisfaction in 
all these experiments than will vinegar. 

You will, if you undertake to work up this study, 
infallibly procure a little apparatus, if it is only a few 
test-tubes. But it is not advisable for you to go too 
deeply into chemistry unless you can have a good 
teacher and plenty of time at your disposal. A few 
experiments made as above suggested, with their re- 
actions studied and understood, will give an idea of 
a science to which years may readily be devoted. 

The following may be taken as an abstract of the 
ground which should be covered. The great object 
of the student should be to grasp the general theory 
of the science. There is little use for him to know 
the atomic weights by heart, — there is every reason 



OUTLINES OF STUDY OF CHEMISTRY. 55 

for him to understand just what an atomic weight is. 
This, then, is presented as a schedule : 

Three states of matter, solid, liquid, gaseous. 

What an element is — the elements in general. 

What a compound substance is — the combination 
of elements. 

The divisions of elements — the atom and mole- 
cule. 

The compound molecule. 

The law of atomic weights. 

Relation of the law of atomic weights to chemical 
combinations — this includes a, the constancy of com- 
position ; b, the law of multiples ; r, the law of equiv- 
alents. 

Law of combination by volumes in the gaseous 
state (Avogadro's Law). 

Chemical symbols — their full meaning and their 
use in equations and formulae. 

Atomicity — the bonds or saturating power of ele- 
ments ; monads, dyads, etc. 

Chemical affinity a source of work ; hence unsat- 
isfied chemical affinity a form of potential energy ; 
by satisfying chemical affinity kinetic energy is pro- 
duced. 

Relations of heat to chemical affinity. 

Electrolysis or decomposition of chemical com- 
pounds by electricity. 

This much the student should work up as thor- 
oughly as possible with a good text-book. A pad 



56 PHILOSOPHY OF CHEMISTRY. 

and pencil should be at his side, and symbols used at 
every step where possible. When this ground has 
been covered even cursorily, and it is best to go over 
it all as well as possible, three or four of the ele- 
ments should be taken up, one by one. Oxygen, 
hydrogen, carbon and zinc would be good ones. 
These should be studied with constant reference to 
the schedule outlined above, the idea being to make 
each element illustrate the general philosophy of 
chemistry. This philosophy the schedule given 
above is designed to cover. 

^ The elements studied may be extended. It will 
be of inestimable advantage if a few weeks or if a 
few hours a week for a few weeks can be given to 
practical work. It is possible that it can be done 
alone, but for personal safety, as well as for much 
greater efficiency, it is most desirable that an 
instructor should be employed. In our high schools, 
teachers are always to be found capable of giving 
excellent chemical instruction. Some arrangement 
can probably be made with some of these. 

In studying the philosophy of chemistry, as we 
have termed it, much must be taken on faith, and it 
will seem dry and abstract, and perhaps impossible 
to remember. This is often the case with things 
involving a new order of thought. But two weeks' 
work following good study will work a wonderful 
change, and the science will crystallize into shape in 
the mind, and the symmetry of it will clearly appear. 



QUANTITATIVE CHEMISTRY. 57 

Chemical work is divided into two branches, qual- 
itative and quantitative. The first treats of the 
qualities of things, such as the various properties of 
the elements, the color, specific gravity and general 
nature of each, and of the salts of reactions and of all 
substances. Quantitative work refers to the quantities 
that enter into reactions and to the determination of 
such weights and volumes. Chemistry restricted to 
one or the other branch is but half expressed or 
learned, as the case may be. The quantitative rela- 
tions expressed by an equation have been just 
brought forward. These relations should be prac- 
tically studied, and a week in a laboratory will give 
some idea of them. 

If the study is abandoned before the full meaning 
of an equation is reached, a great error will have 
been made. The relations expressed by an equation 
are quantitative as well as qualitative, as has been 
shown — the symbol Zn, for instance, means not only 
zinc, but sixty- five parts by weight of zinc, the "part" 
being the relative unit, which happens to be the 
atomic weight of hydrogen. Now a person may 
learn all this, and learn the meaning of equations, 
but he will miss the most perfect grasp of it, if he 
does no quantitative work. The conception of what 
a precipitate is is easy to acquire. If such be fil- 
tered out, washed and weighed, if by stoichiometry 
and equations the weight is made to tell its full story, 
a quantitative determination has been made, and the 



58 QUANTITATIVE CHEMISTRY. 

student at once perceives the idea of relative weights 
of atoms. The Edison chemical meter, the silver 
voltameter, the operations of the electroplating 
bath, the consumption of definitely and unvary- 
ingly related parts of zinc and copper sulphate in a 
Daniell cell, — all such are understood in a new light. 
So our concluding advice is for the student to do 
a little quantitative work, to arrange with a chemical 
friend or even with a pharmacist for a little instruc- 
tion and for the use of the creator of modern chem- 
istry and the present arbiter of all its operations — 
the balance. For in giving us balances which weigh 
down to one-twentieth of a milligram, the Beckers 
and other balance-makers have made great and 
important contributions to the development of 
chemistry. 



59 



CHAPTER V. 

Electricity At Home, 
electrical experiments at home modern phys- 
ics taught quantitatively simple appli- 
ances now used making electrical 

apparatus at home the wheatstone 

bridge — galvanometer resistance coils 

current strength — batteries static elec- 
tricity — electrometers condensers am- 

pere's law magnetism. 

What direction should work at home take in the 
electrical line ? It is by no means necessary that 
much should be done, but it is hard to imagine any 
one with a taste for the science who will not work in 
it during spare moments. There is also this to be 
said, that before entering into any engagement at an 
electrical works or station his time will generally 
be more at the student's disposal than afterwards. 
This is the period in which to familiarize himself 
with electrical construction. Fortunately much can 
be done with the simplest appliances. The work at 
home, or much of it, should take the direction of 
electrical measurements. 



60 SIMPLE APPARATUS. 

Electricity has been denned as the science of 
measurement. This definition is correct, but not 
specific enough, for physics in general may be iden- 
tically defined. To see how the science of physics is 
now taught, the Harvard schedule of work to be 
done before admission to the college course may 
be consulted. It is full of measurements — nearly 
everything in it refers to weighing or measuring 
or determination of strain. The old system of 
simple demonstration of laws has become antiquated. 

The same applies to electricity, — in the modern 
science we work by volts, amperes, and other units. 
A constant appeal to measurement underlies all oper- 
ations. 

From the Harvard schedule another hint as to 
modern methods of teaching may be taken. The 
work prescribed in it is all done with the simplest ap- 
pliances. The strength of materials and factors of 
stress are determined with ordinary spring balances. 
As C. V. Boys expresses it : 

" In these days we are all too apt to depart from the simple 
ways of our fathers, and, instead of following them, to fall down 
and worship the brazen image which the instrument-maker hath 
set up." 

Our student may have seen the beautiful appa- 
ratus in an electrical dealers' store. The meter or 
shorter bridges, the boxes of resistance coils, the 
tangent galvanometers, — all vie with each other in 
elegance of construction. If he had but the money, 
here is where he would spend it. But he can do bet- 



HOME-MADE ELECTRICAL APPARATUS. 61 

ter than that — let him make his own apparatus. He 
can make it accurately enough for the end in view, 
which end is to learn something about electrical 
measurements and incidentally to acquire practical 
experience in electrical construction. Again the 
true theory of instruction is to begin at the bottom, 
and to start with the simplest things. His first 
measurements may be of the " spring balance'' 
order and made with the crudest possible apparatus. 

Let him study out the familiar diamond of the 
Wheatstone bridge and see how simple is the theory. 
Imagine the four resistances to be four pipes of dif- 
ferent sizes, and see if water would not follow the 
same law. Next on a board he may lay out the con- 
nections. One standard resistance is required, which 
can be taken arbitrarily. An electric-light carbon 
with caps of lead cast on the ends to give facilities 
for good connections will answer for this. A gal- 
vanometer is needed. A compass resting within a 
coil of wire will suffice. The proportionate resist- 
ances of two elements of the bridge must be known. 
These he can deduce from their relative lengths. 
Connecting his battery, he can in a few minutes de- 
termine how many times the resistance of the carbon 
is contained in the unknown wire or conductor whose 
resistance he is measuring. 

The above description suggests a meter-bridge, as 
it is popularly called, and this, as the simplest, is, 
perhaps, the best to start with. 



62 HOME-MADE INSTRUMENTS. 



The first thing which the student will find is that 
his galvanometer is entirely unsatisfactory. A very 
delicate one is essential. He will feel the want of a 
standard also, for the true resistance of his carbon is 
unknown. But his extemporized galvanometer will 
probably be his first trouble. Here will be a tempta- 
tion to construct a good one. Next may come the 
construction of a standard resistance coil. He can 
borrow a one or two ohm coil, and using his galva- 
nometer and Wheatstone bridge, can make a resist- 
ance coil for himself. 

When he gets this far, he finds that his bridge is a 
poor-looking affair. So he gets a hard-wood board 
and makes an accurate meter or half-meter bridge. 
He has read up on the subject, and what he now 
reads is more than mere words to him. He studies 
the proportions required for accuracy, the expedient 
of increasing the length of the proportional wire, so 
as to work at its most sensitive portion, and learns 
the range of work which his one resistance coil can 
adequately cover. The conditions of accurate work- 
ing make the range, with the one resistance coil, 
very limited. He needs more coils. 

His accurate bridge, with sensitive galvanometer, 
gives him the facilities for making new coils of 
greater resistance, and his set increases in extent. 
He reads up the subject of coils, notes that they 
must be wound non-inductively, studies the best 
ways of securing insulation, and the best way of pro- 
viding end-contacts. 



BATTERY FACTORS. 63 

He will now wish to measure current strength, for 
doing which he will build a tangent galvanom- 
eter. If he works with a battery, he will wish to 
obtain its factors. This involves the determination 
of potential. If his tangent galvanometer is wound 
finely enough, he can determine potential directly, 
using a Daniell couple for standard ; or he can use 
some of the other methods described in the books, 
such as Poggendorff's method. 

Current measurement may also be done by voltam- 
eters. If a balance is at hand, a copper or silver 
voltameter may T^e used. A very practical experi- 
ment would be to make a zinc voltameter, such as 
the Edison electric meter. This electrolytic work is 
of great utility, and for it the student could make 
some kind of a balance which would give approx- 
imate results. 

A good galvanometer being a necessity, some work 
should be devoted to making it, and, perhaps, all 
things considered, a tangent instrument with high 
and low resistance circuits would be the best 
This may have its needle suspended by a filament, 
and may carry a convex mirror, so as to give prac- 
tice in the reflecting principle. Next a standard 
battery will be needed, for which the Daniell combi- 
nation may be used. Now the student may determine 
voltages, having at hand the essentials. 

Wheatstone bridge work has already been spoken 
of, and will be the most important in every way of 



64 vSTATIC ELECTRICITY. 



the operations so far described, because in it we are 
brought into contact with the most used measure- 
ment of the electrician. Such a book as Ayrton's 
" Practical Electricity " will be found useful in work- 
ing with a bridge, as it gives the practical points 
which conduce to accuracy. 

The above is a mere hint of how our student can 
practice electrical measurement and construction. 
Every boy is apt to have made his own batteries. 
These are very easy to construct now. Discarded 
bits of electric-light carbon are doing service all 
over the land in amateur batteries, and even in those 
sold in the stores. It is probable that the student 
will make a dynamo or mechanical generator. One 
thing will lead to another, and soon he will have a 
concrete idea of electricity as far as his knowledge 
goes. This means that a volt or an ohm will no 
longer be to him shadows and names only — magno- 
rum nominum umbrce, — but will mean something 
actual and real. 

Accepting the convenient division of the science 
into static electricity, dynamic electricity and mag- 
netism, the suggestion would be not to neglect the 
older sister, static electricity, and at the least to go 
as far in it as can conveniently be done without the 
; se of an electric influence machine. But if an 
influence machine can be borrowed, procured or 
constructed, the student will perceive the utility 
of studying its action and of performing experiments 



ELECTROMETERS. 65 

with it. Such a machine places at command an un- 
limited supply of very high-tension electricity, and 
enables very showy experiments to be performed. 

With it the Leyden jar can be investigated — its 
rapid silent discharge by air convection when it is 
connected to a quantity of points, its residual 
charge, and alternative paths of discharge. In the 
latter line of work it would be advisable to go over 
some of Oliver Lodge's experiments — those in which 
he worked upon the protection of buildings from 
lightning. Reports of his lectures are accessible, 
and his work was most interesting. 

With plenty of high-tension electricity at com- 
mand, electrical resonance can be studied, and at 
least some of Hertz's experiments can be worked up. 

As regards quantitative work, something can be 
done in it. The student can construct a rough elec- 
trometer — something better than the old quadrant 
and pithball. This will enable him to measure elec- 
tric tension, and to measure dielectric capacity. A 
balance of some sensibility can be easily made, so 
that a Thomson weight electrometer might be 
built and experimented with. This would be of 
double utility, as it brings us face to face with abso- 
lute measurements. 

An introduction to torsion instruments might be 
made here by the building of a torsion electrometer 
of the quadrant type. With it again some measure- 
ments could be got — or at least an approach to quan- 
titative results. 



66 MAGNETISM. 



The construction of condensers might be taken 
up here, and, ultimately, if a good enough galva- 
nometer is ever made, the determination of static 
charges, capacities and dielectric constants could be 
studied. 

The laws of static charges, their concentration at 
the parts of conductors where the radius of curva- 
ture is smallest, and the escape of a charge from 
points give rise to a number of pretty experiments, 
which could easily be carried out with little expendi- 
ture of time or labor. 

In magnetism the work must be prosecuted largely 
in full accordance with Ampere's law. This indi- 
cates the reaching the laws of the magnet through 
electro-magnetism. The conception of a magnetic 
circuit, the analogy between reluctance and resist- 
ance, between permeance and resistance, between 
permeability and specific resistance, must be well 
formulated, and lines of force must be mapped out to 
illustrate it by the use of iron filings. Nor must the 
student fail to note where the analogy fails — the 
resistance of an electric circuit having no reference 
to the current, while permeability of iron varies with 
the number of lines of force in a given cross-sec- 
tional area ; air, on the other hand, holding an invari- 
able permeability. In dynamo and motor construc- 
tion the magnetic circuit is the very soul of the 
matter. 

The relations between a magnet and a current 



MAGNET AND CURRENT. 67 

should be well worked out experimentally, so that 
any of the memoria technica given in the books 
should be at instant service. After test and verifi- 
cation by experiment the familiar man swimming 
with the current will have a new interest and will 
tell a better story than if he had only been studied 
theoretically and from books. 



68 



CHAPTER VI. 

Mechanical Engineering. 

GROUND COVERED BY MECHANICAL ENGINEERING — 

ITS PLACE IN ELECTRIC PRACTICE MACHINES 

AND TOOLS — ENGINE TESTING STRENGTH OF 

MATERIALS MACHINERY USE OF THE HANDS 

EXTREMES IN PRACTICE — COLLEGE WORK IN 

PRACTICAL MECHANICS MACHINE-SHOP WORK 

FOR THE STUDENT OBSERVATION AND READ- 
ING FAULTY PRACTICE. 

Mechanical engineering is a very comprehensive 
term. It covers so much ground and so much 
information that it may be regarded as the frame- 
work of an electrical education. Sir William Thom- 
son holds that it forms by far the greater part of 
electrical engineering. 

When, therefore, one undertakes to speak of me- 
chanical engineering, it amounts to a recapitulation 
of a great part of such a book as the present one. 
An accomplished mechanical engineer can take hold 
of electrical work with very little special preparation 
or study. The student of electrical engineering may 



MECHANICS OF DYNAMOS. 69 



reach his goal by means of mechanical engineering 
in great part, because mechanical engineering covers 
topics of great value to him. 

The building of a dynamo involves considerations of 
mechanical engineering in the balancing of its arma- 
ture when running as well as when motionless, in 
the construction of its journals with proper end- 
play, in its establishment on a proper foundation, and 
in other details of construction. The driving of a 
dynamo by belt or otherwise is a matter of mechan- 
ical engineering. The modern high-speed engines 
are triumphs in this branch, and they are extensively 
used in electric plants. Some of the finest examples 
of mechanical practice are seen in electric light and 
power stations now, — at one time it was far different. 
The use of rope transmission of power is excellently 
illustrated in some of them, while in the direct 
coupled engine and dynamo we find a compound ma- 
chine, whose ''better half" is certainly of the me- 
chanical order. 

Mechanical engineering covers the use of machines 
and tools, such as the lathe and planer. A compe- 
tent engineer should be able to design, draw, and 
to a considerable extent construct a good steam- 
engine of modern type. Almost any mechanically 
qualified person can make some kind of an engine, 
but not many can execute the whole properly. 

The testing of engines and boilers, including the 
use of the indicator, the correct interpretation of indi- 



70 MATERIALS AND MACHINERY. 

cator-cards, and the calculation of horse-power there- 
from, the determination of boiler and engine 
efficiency, the calculations for thickness of boiler- 
shells, the proportioning of parts of boilers, the lay- 
ing of lines of steam-pipe of capacity for specified 
work, are examples of the work of the mechanical 
engineer. His work may be defined as the prac- 
tical work of mechanics. 

The calculation of larger structures, such as 
bridges or roof-trusses, is also within his scope, but 
such work and the strength of building materials are 
usually considered as appertaining to civil engi- 
neering. 

He is concerned with the strength of materials 
used in his processes. He cannot calculate a boiler 
without knowing the qualities of the metal of which 
it is to be made. 

The knowledge of machinery in general comes 
within this branch. But the reader with any bent 
for electrical engineering need not have machinery 
recommended to him as an object of interest, for it 
must be this to him on account of his very nature. 
But as mechanical engineer he must do more than 
entertain himself. He must be a practical worker. 
In another portion of this book work in factories is 
treated. If the reader has no machine-tools of his 
own and no access to a shop, he must have in his 
mind a determination to sooner or later supply the 
deficiency in his studies thus incurred. He must 



EDUCATION AS A MECHANIC. 71 

know something about tools practically. If he will 
study up a tool thoroughly, he can easily learn to 
work it. It would even be well for him, or better 
than nothing, to do work in a gas-fitter's shop, so as 
to get some idea of how pipe are fitted. 

One object of this is evident. If he has to enter a 
manufacturing establishment in any capacity, knowl- 
edge of tools will stand him in excellent stead. 

Another object to be gained is the use of the 
hands. An engineer should be able to employ these 
important members to good effect when called upon. 
In the courses in mechanical engineering given in 
our best colleges, every student is given a training 
in some branch or branches of machine-shop work. 
An intelligent person who can do one kind of such 
operations will have little trouble in taking up a new 
tool. 

Therefore he who wishes to be an electrician 
should unquestionably be a mechanic. This may 
not in all cases mean that he must know how to run 
a giant planer to the best advantage, paring down 
the edge of thirty-inch armor-plate as if it were 
pine wood. He might not be a success in running a 
jewelers' lathe and in cutting out microscopic pin- 
ions. But in him there should be the capacity for 
doing such work if the time should come for him to 
perform it. An unwashed, oily workman, standing 
all day before a drill-press and drearily reaming out 
holes in castings where the iron falls in dust slowly 



THE REAL MECHANIC. 



from the hole, who, when he goes to the lathe, cen- 
ters his work on center-punch prickings, too lazy or 
too ignorant to drill a center-hole which will bear on 
the shoulders of the lathe-center and not on its 
point, may call himself a mechanic. But does not he 
yield to a man like the scientist Boys, who has 
evolved the quartz fibre as a suspension filament, 
who worked out the handling and manipulation of 
the almost invisible thread of rock-crystal, and who 
makes up his own apparatus as required ? So, 
though you may have spent months in a dirty ma- 
chine-shop, be chary about calling yourself a me- 
chanic, — though you are at home with a lathe or a 
planer, you are not a mechanical engineer until you 
can work out and superintend their construction 
from the pig and bar. 

If you wish to know how far a man may go in me- 
chanical engineering, send for a catalogue of a col- 
lege where the degree of mechanical engineer is 
given. You will be surprised at the range of the 
course, and you must not suppose that it is all books. 
The students put on overalls and work in the shop 
just as you do. Because their work is intelligently 
directed to the end of teaching them the most possi- 
ble in the shortest time, you must not look down on 
it — rather recognize the luxury and good sense of it, 
— and if you are, from force of circumstances, plod- 
ding in a shop, feel that your long hours of labor will 
improve you more by their disciplining effect than 



DESIGNING MACHINERY. 



by simply enabling you to cut more inches of screw 
in a day than the apparently superficial student. 
Neither one should criticise the other, — let each do 
his best where he is, and feel that he is stepping on 
the lowest round of a ladder of unknown length. 

So you must be a mechanical engineer. Now look 
over this book — take out everything that refers 
directly to electricity, and see if it will be much 
smaller. 

It speaks of your natural qualifications — do not 
these bespeak a mechanical engineer? Chemistry, 
physics and mechanics are spoken of. These, too, 
apply to the education of the mechanical engineer. 
All of this section, all of the one devoted to drawing, 
much that is said about reading, about mathematics, 
steam engineering, etc., — does not all this apply to the 
same profession ? Therefore, when you are a me- 
chanical engineer, your work is more than one-half 
done. 

In your capacity of constructor you may have to 
design machinery. If you have studied up foundry 
work, you will have constantly in your mind the oper- 
ation of the model-maker, and will, in your design, 
offer him as little difficulty as possible in making for 
your machinery models that will draw from the sand. 
If you are working with a galvanometer or elec- 
trometer and break the filament, you may have to 
replace it yourself. Here are the two opposite ex- 
tremes of a mechanical constructor's work. You 



74 MACHINE-SHOP WORK AND OBSERVATION. 

will not be called on for both at the same time prob- 
ably — of course you may be, — but the lesson is clear : 
Try to learn to use your hands and brain well. Be 
a mechanic in manipulation and in thought. 

A good quantity of machine-shop work will be ex- 
cellent for the student. If you have to work by the 
day, there will be a great disadvantage in the fact 
that you will have to work at a single machine, per- 
haps, with not even a chance of looking at another. 
But if you can run one, a few hours' practice will 
enable you to run another, so your time will be well 
spent. 

Observe all machinery which you come across. 
Note the little details of construction of locomo- 
tives. Visit shops of all kinds — take sketches on 
paper — or, what is far better, take mental sketches of 
everything you see. And all the while read. In the 
proper place you will find a few mechanical books 
recommended. The object there is to make as 
short a list as is consistent with the purpose of 
this work ; but you can amplify the list to any 
extent. 

Since the purpose of this book has come up, recall 
one theme on which it has preached from the begin- 
ning — be thorough even at the expense of not going 
over much ground. If you are in a machine-shop 
and are to work on a lathe for six weeks, in that time 
learn all the mysteries of it. Learn how the pitch is 
changed — work out the different combinations of 



EXAMPLES OF BAD PRACTICE. 75 

gear-wheels — calculate what would happen were the 
feed-screw of a different pitch — note how the lathe 
is put together — see if you could run it for light 
planing — study out a method of working in it long 
pieces, too long to go between its centers. You will 
find that understanding one thing very well will help 
you to understand others. 

Examine electrical line-work and in-door and out- 
door wiring, and see the numerous examples of 
clumsy mechanical work which meet the eye every- 
where. The exclusion of converters from the inter- 
iors of buildings having come to be recognized as 
proper, the custom is established of placing them on 
window-sills and elsewhere on building fronts. Per- 
haps an unpainted board is fastened first in the 
neighborhood of the window, and on that the con- 
verter is placed. Wires are carried from the line to 
the converter and from the converter into the house. 
The whole arrangement of unpainted board, rusty 
converter case and weathered wires is unartistic in 
the general sense, it is true; but it is worse than this. 
It is unartistic in the technical sense, as it offends 
every instinct of a mechanic. The weather-worn 
arrangements with rusty nails adding their stains 
to the rest — galvanized iron being an unknown or 
forgotten luxury — is unmechanical. Can you not 
make up your mind that as a mechanical engineer 
you would attend to such details as these, and re- 
deem alternating current lighting from its present 
reproach of hideousness ? 



76 INDIFFERENCE TO DETAILS. 

This may seem too strongly put. Ten years from 
this time, when we look back on what was endured at 
the hands of electrical workmen, it will not seem so, 
for then the better era, it is to be hoped, will be 
inaugurated. The readers of this book may furnish 
recruits to the army who are to better these condi- 
tions. 

In-doors we find the same indifference to details. 
Battens, unvarnished and ugly, are run everywhere, 
to carry wires. They are run right across a mould- 
ing, no attempt being made to follow the curves. If 
this is impossible with ordinary battens, as it is, it 
might be within the resources of the mechanical en- 
gineer to devise some neater way of crossing a 
moulding or cornice. 

It is in the neglect of details that electric service 
has become so ugly in its carrying out. There is 
room for progress and improvement. 

The details of engineering practice cover every- 
thing of the nature suggested above. The use of 
non-corrosive iron, galvanized or otherwise protected 
from rust where exposed to the weather, the painting 
or varnishing of wood-work, the neat and electrically 
perfect jointing of wires, — a multitude of things of 
this nature come under the cognizance of the me- 
chanical engineer. 



7? 



CHAPTER VII. 

Drawing. 
drawing a poor reliance by itself its im- 
portance to the engineer free-hand 

practice — sketches in note-books of phys- 
ics or chemistry shade lines pen or pen- 
cil practice dimension sketches profile 

paper descriptive geometry perspective 

blue prints — care of instruments con- 
ventional representations catalogues. 

Business men have a theory that a really good 
book-keeper is apt to be so useful a man that he 
lives and dies a book-keeper, and is never anything 
else, so that it would seem to be the best plan in a 
certain sense not to learn book-keeping. Some- 
what the same thing applies to mechanical drawing. 
It is well to understand it, and to be able to do good 
work with the T square and drawing-board, but such 
knowledge must be only an equipment, not a profes- 
sion. 

If drawing is your all, you will never leave the 
traces. If you do draw well, be sure you can do 
other things well also; for if you can draw and can 



78 IMPORTANCE OF DRAWING. 

do nothing else, you might almost be advised to con- 
ceal the fact, lest you become a draughtsman for 
life. 

Seriously speaking, drawing should be learned ; 
not necessarily free-hand work, but certainly me- 
chanical drawing. It is a great comfort to be able 
to produce a correct sketch of anything wanted, a 
sketch which will be good enough for a draughtsman 
or machinist to work from. A new dynamo or motor 
may be studied up on the drawing-board to great ad- 
vantage. Even the working out of a simple matter 
of circuits is often much facilitated by drawing their 
diagram with rule and right-line pen, instead of mak- 
ing confused pencil sketches. It is possible, too, 
that you may wish to make memorandum sketches 
of ideas that occur to you, and the convenience of 
being able to do this for one's self is very great. 

If an instrument is to be designed, it will be of 
pre-eminent service for the originator to be able to 
draw it for himself, for to be obliged to absolutely 
depend upon another to design for you is almost 
slavery. The very drawing of a new apparatus will 
give ideas concerning its construction. 

Excellent practice in drawing consists in making 
a free-hand sketch of a machine, in quoting dimen- 
sions on the sketch, and in making from this a full 
mechanical drawing. It is quite conceivable that 
such operations might prove very useful in real life, 
for one might often desire a drawing of some par- 



PRACTICAL REMARKS. 79 

ticular thing, which could only be obtained in this 
way. 

You know by this time that you have got to be a 
mechanical engineer, if you are to be an electrical 
engineer. Did you ever hear of one who could not 
draw ? Therefore learn to draw. Go far enough in 
it to trust no unproved drawing-board for square- 
ness ; go so far that you do most or all of your work 
with T square, working along one edge of your board 
only ; learn to do your minor work with two trian- 
gles and no T square at all ; learn to sketch free- 
hand well enough to get the basis for a scale drawing 
of a dynamo or other machine or apparatus. If you 
draw well enough, you may even take a position as 
draughtsman, but only take it as a temporary affair ; 
do not make it a permanency. 

Very nice practice in drawing is given by making 
sketches of any apparatus you may be experimenting 
with. It will be of service as a method of clarifying 
the thoughts to draw it. A chemical or physical 
note-book kept on this principle, and embodying 
sketches of apparatus as actually used, may be made 
very attractive. 

Making little free-hand drawings of apparatus 
involves, perhaps, more taste than artistic skill. 
Neatness is the first requisite, — and a sort of conven- 
tional style should be acquired. To give effect, 
shade lines may be used. You draw extra heavy the 
lines which indicate corners or edges of flat surfaces 



SO PEN OR PENCIL SKETCHING. 

which are so placed as to cast shadows. These in 
general are vertical lines on the right side of sur- 
faces or objects, horizontal lines on the lower side 
of surfaces or objects, and diagonal lines interme- 
diate between. A somewhat free or exaggerated 
use of these lines gives a certain effect to a poor 
sketch. But if you can draw correctly, you need not 
use them. They serve to conceal defects, and this 
is really one of their principal uses. 

The question of whether you should practice free- 
hand drawing with pencil or pen comes up, some 
advising the use of a pen, because you must then 
draw rightly from the start, and facility of erasure or 
of rubbing out afforded by the use of the pencil is 
supposed to militate against correctness. If by pen- 
work the art of drawing correctly from the first line 
can be acquired, the pen should certainly be used. 

For ink you may use common ink, but good effects 
are not so easily produced with it as with India ink. 
The liquid India ink and a lithographer's pen give 
a chance for very fine effects, but it takes a good 
draughtsman to fully profit by them. They are 
hardly to be recommended for practice, as they are 
luxuries, not at all requisite for the student. 

In making sketches for dimensions to be quoted 
on, it is a good rule to use a rather large scale — the 
drawing should not be cramped. This gives plenty 
of room for writing in the dimensions, and allows 
one to note the smaller features, and even to make 
memoranda on the sketch. 



DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY. 81 



Another great convenience in sketching is cross- 
ruled paper. Regular profile paper is expensive, but 
cross-ruled paper can be bought by the quire, and is 
almost as good as the other. If the lack of the heavy 
tenth lines is felt, you can rule off every tenth line 
yourself. But in most general drawing the absence 
of the heavy tenth lines will be a positive advantage. 

If you care to take up descriptive geometry, which 
is an addition that well may be made to our recital 
of branches of study, you will learn it by drawing 
the problems with right-line pen, straight edge, tri- 
angle and dividers, which will not only teach you 
descriptive geometry, but give excellent practice in 
drawing. Every architect drawing a house, or me- 
chanical draughtsman drawing a machine, follows 
the rules of descriptive geometry, whether he has 
studied it or not, often without knowing it even. It 
is quite possible that he may have never heard of it, 
but he uses it, and follows its laws in every line 
which he makes. 

After descriptive geometry come shades and 
shadows. These are decidedly a refinement, and may 
be left as an accomplishment to be worked up if 
time permits. The same may be said of perspective. 
Yet one ought to know something of these as well. 
Both are simply extensions of, or rather a series of 
special problems in, descriptive geometry. They 
involve the determination of the intersections of 
planes and curved surfaces by planes and curved 



82 SITTING OR STANDING-NIGHT WORK. 

surfaces, and of the loci of tangency to curved sur- 
faces of planes and curved surfaces. They embrace 
very elegant problems, and if one has a fancy for 
graphics, they may be studied. 

If the student wishes to practice drawing, he can 
just as well make problems in descriptive geometry, 
in perspective and in shades and shadows afford him 
models, as use pictures of Ionic capitals and of 
steam-engines for subjects. One trouble he may 
think is that a studying up of the problem will in 
each case be involved, but that will be rather an ad- 
vantage. Several problems may be well learned 
before being drawn, in order to avoid breaking in 
upon one's work at the board. 

While drawing is usually taught in the standing 
position, it will be found that in regular draughting- 
rooms high stools are apt to make their appearance. 
It is maintained by many, however, that standing is 
far healthier than sitting. 

If possible, do not draw at night. Rise at five in 
the morning in summer and draw before breakfast ; 
work late in the afternoon and put off your supper. 
It will not hurt you to eat by lamp-light. But do 
not spoil your eyes any more than necessary. You 
will in all human probability do them lots of harm 
by looking at strong lights, perhaps at arc lights, 
though you know it is a most reprehensible prac- 
tice; so do not start in to abuse them by drawing at 
night. If you must do so, then have a good stu- 



BLUE-PRINT PAPER. 83 

dent's lamp to work by, use a paper with dull or 
mat surface, and place the lamp so that the angle of 
reflection will not bring the reflected beam straight 
to your eye. 

Blue-print paper is a very convenient adjunct to 
the drawing-room, and you may practice with it a 
little. Drawings on quite thick paper may be copied 
on blue-print paper if there is good sunlight. Print- 
ing on the reverse side of the copy, or another 
drawing or cut there, of course renders impossible 
the use of blue-print paper for copying a design from 
such paper. 

Get a few points from a regular draughtsman as 
regards care of instruments, and the keeping of the 
points of dividers and the edges of right-line pens 
sharpened. Even the sharpening of pencils and 
best shape to give their points may be looked into. 
For sharpening the lead of pencils little pads of 
sand-paper are often used, but the writer's favorite 
is a file. 

Conveniences in drawing are multiplying every 
year. Do not start to get all of them. You need 
but half a dozen instruments, and a large expendi- 
ture for a collection, whose principal value is in a 
heavy rosewood box strapped with brass or German 
silver, cannot be recommended. As has been aptly 
noted, experienced draughtsmen are very prone to 
keep their instruments in segar boxes. Perhaps they 
go too far in this direction. 



84 CONVENTIONAL REPRESENTATIONS. 

In sketching wiring diagrams for houses, or for 
isolated plants, certain things have to be repeatedly 
drawn. Thus, if working upon such isolated plants, 
you will have to draw a great many times over con- 
ventional representations of a dynamo and steam- 
engine. In each case a number of lamps, all abso- 
lutely identical, have to be drawn, and there are 
various other features which have to be repeated 
often in such work. 

For each of these it is well to adopt a fixed symbol 
or simple little drawing. Do not lose sight of effect- 
iveness or neatness. A sheet of such drawings has 
been published, and gives an idea of how to carry 
out the above suggestion. Do not use any care- 
lessly made symbol, or it may involve an error. 

But if you have a great many such drawings to 
make, and this is possible, it would be well to have 
some rapid way of making them. Little stencils 
might be used, or if one is an adept at carving, repre- 
sentations might be cut out of wood resembling 
type, and from the types rubber stamps could be 
made. 

It is well to get acquainted with engineers and find 
what conventional symbols or drawings they use for 
lamps of different kinds, for direct and alternating 
current dynamos and the like. Notice also how the 
crossing of wires without contact is indicated by a 
little loop or bend on one of the wires. After you 
have learned something about drawing, half an hour 



ACCURACY OF DETAIL. 85 

or an hour with an electrical draughtsman will give 
you the clue to these special features. 

In trade catalogues and electrical books will be 
found hints for drawing. Thus if you are making a 
large scale sketch of a dynamo or motor, you will get 
good models for binding-posts from such books. 
Other details are given in profusion in catalogues 
and are excellent for practice. Nothing adds more 
to the appearance and effectiveness of a rough 
sketch than accuracy of detail, or at least an evi- 
dence that the draughtsman knew what he was 
doing. Such evidence will be given by the binding- 
posts being of the latest type, by switches being of 
accepted model, and by a general up-to-date effect 
produced by attention to little things. 

Under engineering in this book it is stated that 
attention to little things is of great importance 
for engineers. The same is to be said for everything 
in science, and in drawing it is as true as in any 
other branch. Such details of practice as those 
indicated will even compensate for other imperfec- 
tions in drawing, imperfections due, perhaps, to ab- 
sence of artistic talent. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Teachers. 

practicability of obtaining assistance in study 

solving difficulties — making every one 

a teacher — university extension — school 
courses in science — different classes of 
students — the hard workers in the lab- 
oratory — difficulty of teaching electric- 
ITY. 

Is a teacher necessary for the branches of study 
required of the electrician ? Can the limited amount 
suggested here be learned at home and alone ? 

While it certainly can, it is none the less true 
that a teacher will greatly facilitate matters. An 
hour every two or three days even, with a good 
teacher, will do much to settle the difficulties which 
will present themselves. A private teacher is rather 
an expensive luxury, and one which comparatively 
few can afford. But it must be that within the range 
of almost every one's acquaintance there is a friend 
who can be consulted. Perhaps it is a school princi- 
pal ; perhaps a man studying at or graduated from 



LEARNING WITHOUT HELP. 87 

college. In reading and studying a subject make 
notes of the difficult points as they occur to you. 
The next day try to solve them after a night's sleep. 
This will doubtless thin the list down. Then attack 
your friend with them. The fact that you are work- 
ing under disadvantages will go far to excite a special 
interest in you and in your work. The thinning down 
process will cause you to present fewer difficulties 
for solution than otherwise would be the case, and 
the difficulties will be good ones. Some may be too 
much for your adviser. An aspect of earnestness 
will follow from all this, and greater willingness to 
help you will be insured. 

At least it may be the result— but it may not. You 
may find yourself assuming the dreadful aspect of 
a bore. Then there is but one thing to be done, 
study alone. Do not mind how old you are. Alfieri, 
the Italian poet, learned Greek after he was fifty 
years of age. Note your difficulties, think over them 
day by day, and as you increase the list at one end, 
it will certainly be reduced day by day at the other. 
Some people hold that they can learn alone anything 
which they can learn with a teacher. There is no 
royal road to knowledge; there are, however, some 
long roads — very long ones, — and the teacherless road 
is apt to be one of the longest of all. 

An arrangement might be made for one evening a 
week, just to smooth over the worst parts of your 
subjects. This would be better than nothing. 



THE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION. 



Make every one your teacher. The trolley-man 
and the electric-car conductor can doubtless give you 
some points in electricity. Try them, and see if 
their plain, every-day statements of the little they 
may know will not be of value. Make the acquaint- 
ance of the engineer at the electric light or power 
station, and acquire familiarity with volts and amperes, 
if it is only to the extent of letting your ears receive 
the words from another's mouth. 

If there is a circulating library in your place of 
residence, the librarian may be able to help you, at 
least in the selection of books. But the work of 
librarians has so greatly developed in these days of 
library schools, that you will probably not find them 
possessed of much special knowledge of science as a 
rule. A good librarian has so much to do in keeping 
up with the requirements of the profession, that his or 
her knowledge of science is apt not to be specialized. 

There is one splendid agent of instruction, the 
University Extension. After you have worked your- 
self into a perfect tangle of electrical study, and feel 
almost in despair (although you should not), attend 
a ten or twenty lecture University Extension course 
in electricity and see how your troubles will vanish. 
After each lecture the professor in these courses gives 
a conference to those members of his audience who 
desire it. Your first questions will show that you 
have been studying, and his interest in you will at 
once be excited. Without monopolizing him, follow 



SCIENCE COURSES AT SCHOOL. 89 

up the advantage, and try to keep him as a friend and 
adviser. At first do not present your hard points 
for solution. See if his lectures are not going to clear 
them away. Towards the end of the course you may 
present any that remain, and he will gladly help you 
out of your trouble. 

The value of a course of University Extension 
lectures cannot be overestimated in such cases. 
They will supply the missing element, and do much to 
put the home-student on a level with the college man. 
All subjects may be treated in University Extension, 
and the subjects are determined by the directors of 
the course. Often a very little will turn the scale in 
favor of one or the other subject, so there may be no 
difficulty in getting an electrical course selected. 

This little book will doubtless be read by some who 
are still at school. It may be possible for such to 
arrange with the principal to have a little extra science 
and mathematics. He will judge whether or not it is 
deserved, and whether it will be profitable or not. The 
tendency of advanced educators is to give more 
attention to science than formerly, and it is being 
made a feature in many schools. Where it is so, one 
thing is to be noticed — the way in which different 
pupils will take to it. Some like it as a novelty only, 
and after a few lessons work at it listlessly enough. 
Such present little evidence of fitness for professional 
life. Others are interested in it throughout — a good 
sign. To others it seems a little disappointing. 



90 THE SLOW HARD WORKERS. 

Chemistry in the laboratory loses, perhaps, the gla- 
mour it had before closer acquaintance with it. But 
these last we will suppose to have determination and to 
be determined to grapple with the subject despite its 
dryness. Pretty soon the dryness begins to disappear. 
If it is chemistry, they commence by keeping model 
note-books, with sketches of the apparatus, where 
anything special is employed. Reactions are all 
worked out and chemical equations written down. 
Perhaps the proportions of re-agents in the equations 
are calculated. For these chemistry takes a new 
meaning, and the third class, the slow, hard workers, 
give the best pledge of any for future success. 

In a school with active principal and teachers 
one good student might often be able to bring about 
the introduction of a science course and of laboratory 
work. The teachers, if not advanced in practical 
science, would be, or should be, glad of the chance to 
work it up. 

There is this also to be said: While a good teacher 
of any branch is rather hard to find, a good teacher 
of electricity is especially so. Where the very basis 
of a science is as uncertain as is that of electricity, 
where a whole superstructure is devoted to the phe- 
nomena of something so mysterious that it has not been 
and may never be defined — for there is every prob- 
ability that mankind will never know what it is that 
drives the electric car, whispers a message across 
the ocean, carries articulations of speech from New 



THE GOOD TEACHER. 91 

York to Chicago, splits trees and fuses quartz into 
fulgurites, — when the best attempts at a theory of 
electricity are based on the purely hypothetical ether, 
it must be hard to teach the subject. For a teacher 
must know far more than he teaches ; he must un- 
derstand within the limits of his teaching just where 
the weak spots in the theory are ; he must know 
where a student will find special difficulty in under- 
standing ; he must not let a student go off thinking 
he understands where he does not. 

A teacher must be the product of experience in 
general and experience in particular. This means 
that he must know the general principles of teaching, 
and must have special knowledge of the subject he 
is engaged on. Such a one is not easy to find. When 
such is met he is a treasure to the student, and from 
his very nature will appreciate an ambitious or hard- 
working learner. 

The above summary goes to show that he who is 
his own teacher, when he could get another, is like 
the man who is his own lawyer. The latter, it is said, 
has a fool for a client. The application is obvious. 



92 



CHAPTER IX. 

Electrical Factory Work for Students. 

utility of factory work for students — who 

would be most benefited uselessness of 

some positions — small and large works 

premiums paid for positions in factories 

time expended in factory work by students 
schedules of courses. 

The question of whether it pays to enter an elec- 
trical factory and work upon dynamos and the other 
products is one that can be answered in several 
ways. The answer will depend on who the person is, 
and under what auspices he enters the establishment. 

If the man is quite ignorant of machinery and tools, 
then the sooner he enters some kind or any kind of 
a shop the better. For nothing is more forlorn than 
a purely theoretical engineer. He should above all 
things know the limitations of tools, how to use them, 
and how to direct others in their use. Thus in many 
cases the prize man from a college can do nothing 
more beneficial to himself than going into an elec- 
trical factory as a temporary apprentice. 



VALUE OF PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE. 93 

It is to be presumed that many of the readers of 
this book will be skilled mechanics, many will be 
good amateur mechanics, and all others to whom 
it will be of any good will have a taste for the same 
art. The propriety of going to work will vary evi- 
dently for each of such classes, and for each individ- 
ual of each class. Every one must judge for himself 
as far as general mechanics are concerned. 

The non-educated, book-learned person, who does 
not understand anything about tools, evidently needs 
a machine-shop training worse than the one whom he 
may call uneducated, but who knows what his hands 
and arms are good for. It is useless to try to distin- 
guish between the numerous degrees of proficiency 
in mechanics. 

There is no question that some time may be bene- 
ficially given to an apprenticeship, as it may be termed, 
in an electrical factory. If it is possible, by any 
means, to go to one, and to work a little while in each 
of the different departments, or even in a few of the 
more important, then the experience would be of the 
utmost value, and of the most value to the man best 
prepared to profit by it. The skilled machinist would 
profit the quickest — the college student probably the 
most in the long run. 

But as to whether it pays a young man to go in as 
a common workman in a large factory simply because 
it is an electrical one, and spend his day on one single 
thing, such as cutting washers, there can be little 



94 DIFFICULTY OF FINDING POSITIONS. 

doubt. He will learn no electrical engineering by doing 
this. It would be advisable for him to accept such a 
position only if there were a chance of advance- 
ment, but such there probably will not be. 

In a small works there would be more chance. If 
everything is done in one or two rooms, then all is 
under one's eyes, A workman in such a place may 
be called upon to turn his hand to anything, and will 
have a chance to pick up much more than in the 
highly specialized system of the large factory. 

One thing is certain. Without paying for the priv- 
ilege, it will be very hard to obtain an entrance into 
the electrical factory. They are now besieged by 
young men, willing to make every kind of promise, if 
they will be only admitted to the desired precincts. 
Some of them, many of them, are of the highest 
promise, and would be of real value to any works 
employing them. But there is no room for the appli- 
cants, so it is very hard to get in. This may remove 
part of the difficulty, for it is possible that you will not 
be able to enter at all. It removes the difficulty of 
selecting what department to work in, for if you are 
admitted at all, there will be no choice for you; you 
must take any position assigned. 

For those who are willing to pay a premium 
positions at nominal pay can be obtained at electrical 
factories. The Thompson-Houston factory at Lynn, 
Mass., and the Edison factory at Schenectady, New 
York, have offered to do this, and doubtless other 
works will be willing to follow their lead. The ex- 



TIMS REQUIRED IN REGULAR COURSES. 05 

penditure of the premium is compensated for in part, 
in the case of the two works named, by the payment 
of nominal wages to the students whom they employ. 
Thus the premium is gradually recouped. 

The time required in these courses is a serious 
thing. A whole year is supposed to be required for 
a college graduate, and more for one less advanced. 
The course once finished, the student has no claim 
upon the factory, and must hold himself prepared to 
find a position elsewhere. 

The schedule of the courses supplied by these two 
works is given as examples of carefully selected out- 
lines of student work. . It will be seen that a quantity 
of ground is covered, and the demonstration is afford- 
ed of how much there is to learn inside of a great 
works. 

The ideal education in electricity would seem to 
include such a course. The unsatisfactory part of it 
is that a year is spent in perfecting one's self in details 
of engineering which may eventually not be used, al- 
though they will always directly or indirectly be useful. 

For one who is dependent on himself for his living 
the more ideal thing would be to start in some smaller 
works in any capacity, in the hope of working up. 
To such a one the long course of one or more years 
at the Thompson-Houston or Edison works is out of 
the question. If he can only obtain a position of 
any kind at bare living wages, and one which leads 
to promotion, he will thus get his best and most 
available apprenticeship. 



96 STUDENTS' COURSES IN FACTORIES. 

Schedules of Students Courses in Electrical Engi- 
neering at the Works of the General Electric 
Company. 

LYNN, MASS., WORKS. 

Kind of Work. Weeks. 

SHOP PLANT. 

1 . Wiring 4 

2. Shop motors 4 

ARC DEPARTMENT. 

1. Arc lamp assembling 2 

2. Arc lamp testing 4 

3. Arc machine assembling and testing .5 

INCANDESCENT DEPARTMENT, DIRECT. 

1. Incandescent machine assembling and testing, 4 

2. Meters 2 

3. Winding armatures 4 

STATIONARY MOTORS AND GENERATORS. 

1. Assembling and testing 4 

2. Railway and large generators 5 

ALTERNATING SYSTEM. 

1. Machine assembling and testing 5 

2. Construction transformers 1 

3. Testing transformers 1 

4. Testing mining drills and apparatus 2 

Railway motor testing 3 

Blacksmith shop 2 



58 



STUDENTS' COURSES IN FACTORIES. 97 



SCHENECTADY, N. Y., WORKS. 

Kind of Work. Weeks. 

ERECTING DEPARTMENT. 

Assembling railway motors 2 

Assembling small dynamos I 

Assembling large dynamos I 

Winding field magnets 3 

Pillow block fitting, etc I 

TUBE DEPARTMENT. 

Galvanometer work, testing instruments, etc 2 

WIRE DEPARTMENT. 

Conductivity measurements 2 

Testing multipolar armatures 2 

ARMATURE DEPARTMENT. 

Winding and connecting armatures, Gramme ring, 3 

Winding and connecting armatures, drum 3 

Testing armatures 2 

MOTOR DEPARTMENT. 

Railway motors 3 

Small stationary motors and generators 3 

EDISON TESTING DEPARTMENT. 

Testing large motors and generators . . 4 

Use of instruments and general testing 4 

F. & A. DEPARTMENT. 

General machine work 2 

Testing small motors, meter magnets, calibrating 

ammeters, etc 4 

Commutator work 2 

Shop Wiring and power station 4 

CABLE DEPARTMENT. 

Testing insulation, etc 4 

52 
Students are allowed to take only one of these 
courses, and are paid a very small salary, which 
increases during the year. At the end of the year no 
obligation to retain them is imposed on the company. 
A premium is also required, and only a limited 
number of students are received. 



CHAPTER X. 
College Education, 
colleges — disadvantages and advantages 
of a college course — scholarships — 

tutorships large and small colleges — 

apparatus electrical course studies. 

It seems unnecessary to consider the question 
of whether a prospective electrician should go to col- 
lege. If possible, he should do so, and after graduat- 
ing should, if able to do so, remain at the college and 
take a post-graduate course. But this work is written 
principally for those who do not have the inestim- 
able advantage of attending a college course. A col- 
lege man generally knows far more on the day of his 
graduation than ever afterwards. For such as they 
advice is not needed, or rather is useless, because it 
would not be considered. 

If a young man wishes to go to college, he will 
have to give up to it three or four years, perhaps, 
without making anything. Something may be earned 
by a bright man at college by coaching other stu- 
dents, acting as private tutor to prepare them for 
their examinations. As a man advances higher the 



COLLEGE PROSPECTS. 101 

prospects of obtaining such work increase, and it 
may become quite remunerative. Sometimes, too, 
there is a little literary work which can be done, not 
in connection with the college, but for some paper or 
publishing house. 

All this is very desultory, and any success in earn- 
ing money will depend on very hard work. And the 
same is apt to be the case also with the graduates, or 
at least with such of them as have no places open 
and ready to be stepped into. 

The college course leads to several incidental ad- 
vantages. A good man may obtain a scholar- 
ship, and be invited to continue his studies and to 
receive also a small but appreciable honorarium or 
salary while doing so. 

A college course also opens up the avenue to teach- 
ers' work. A graduate who passes the course with 
honor may become connected as tutor with his own or 
with some other college. However low the position, 
it is at least the beginning of a career which may 
lead to a professorship. In some cases, where direct 
connection with the college cannot be brought about, 
private tuition, such as already spoken of, can be 
given at high rates by the known successful gradu- 
ate. 

What college to go to may be settled largely by 
the question of locality. In all parts of the country 
are colleges at which courses in mechanical and elec- 
trical engineering can be taken, and the largest and 



102 CHOICE OF COLLEGE. 

most richly endowed are by no means the only 
ones worth attending. The greater chance for per- 
sonal attention on the part of professors in the small 
institution may overbalance the larger plant and 
more expensive apparatus of the other. 

There is no end to accumulating apparatus, — a col- 
lege may get infected by the same desire sometimes 
seen in adults for collecting apparatus of the most 
varied description. But better work is often done 
with the meager supplies of a small college or private 
laboratory than in the princely laboratory of a great 
university. 

Very fine and expensive apparatus is needed for 
work in original investigation. This class of work is 
not supposed to be performed by students. So, as far 
as non-graduates are concerned, the elaborate appa- 
ratus is not needed at all; simpler appliances answer- 
ing every purpose for them. 

A part of the course in electricity, and a principal 
part of it, is comprised under mechanical engineer- 
ing. Great tangent galvanometers and the like are 
but incidents of the course, for the work in mechan- 
ics is one of the most important things taught, and 
for it the luxury of apparatus is not needed. The 
practical portion of mechanics, namely machine-shop 
work, is, it is to be presumed, within the scope and 
talents of readers of this book to a greater degree 
than in the case of many or most college students. 

All this leads to the conclusion that you need not 
mourn if you cannot take a college course, and espe- 




ilf 



j . ,i jgt 




Testing Room, Cornell University 



THE COURSE IN ELECTRICITY. 105 



daily need not be troubled if you have to go to some 
small college instead of to Cornell, Harvard or Co- 
lumbia. 

At Cornell University the course in electrical en- 
gineering for the first three years is identical with 
that in mechanical engineering. It is expressly 
stated that " none should apply for it unless strong 
in both mathematics, pure and applied, and in phys- 
ics." It is fair to say that physics is really lit- 
tle more than applied mathematics. After three 
years' study in such branches as chemistry, physics, 
mathematics, work in the machine-shop and in the 
physical laboratory, a portion of the work of the con- 
cluding year is devoted to electrical engineering, 
tests of efficiency of dynamos and motors, photom- 
etry, and tests of telegraphic instruments, lines and 
cables. This does not suggest any great amount of 
work in electricity, pure and simple. 

The mere summary of the electrical apparatus of 
Cornell University would fill a number of these pages, 
it is so extensive. Dynamos, motors, storage batter- 
ies, lamps, measuring instruments, authorized cop- 
ies of standards, are there in great variety and pro- 
fusion. A competent man could spend many months 
in interesting work under the facilities such a plant 
provides. Yet the under-graduate will find that his 
part among all these riches will be a comparatively 
small one, for his operations can be conducted with 
simpler appliances and without any reference to the 
prize pieces of the great collection. 



106 DISPENSING WITH THE COLLEGE. 

If circumstances prevent you from entering one of 
the great universities, console yourself with the feel- 
ing that nothing is more mortifying than to spend 
four years at a university and on graduation to find 
no place open for you. The long struggle which the 
self-made electrical engineer may go through will be- 
gin earlier, and, it is to be hoped, will be sooner over. 
All of which is some comfort for the army of eager 
workers who, with insufficient means, insufficient fa- 
cilities and insufficient education, are striving for 
the goal in competition with the sons of the rich, 
who are educated up to the highest pitch, provided 
they do not expend their talents on cribbing their 
way through college. 



107 



CHAPTER XI. 

Steam Engineering. 

WASTED POWERS OF NATURE WASTEFULNESS OF 

COAL — POOR ECONOMY OF THE STEAM-ENGINE 

COAL CONSUMPTION OF A STATION— UNFAIR 
RECORDS— ERRORS IN STATEMENTS— FADS EN- 
GINES OF DIFFERENT TYPES — REVOLUTIONS IN 
ENGINEERING — STEAM ENGINEERING A SPECIAL 
STUDY. 

Steam engineering is the epitome of the station en- 
gineer's acquirements. If he is only a first-class steam 
engineer, and there are comparatively few of them, 
he is nine-tenths qualified to conduct a station. 
There is nowhere to be found, except on steamships 
or in cable traction plants, an instance where steam 
and heat play a more important part than in an 
electric power or light generating plant. 

For, unfortunately, we still have to see the force 
of gravity actuating millions of horse-power of poten- 
tial energy upon this earth every twenty-four hours 
without our utilizing any of it directly,— we know that 
the thermic conditions of the natural world bring 
about kinetic energy which, utilized, could sweep 



108 UNUTILIZED NATURAL POWERS. 



the steam-engine out of existence, when we realize 
that the succession of night and day or of summer 
and winter are sources of energy before which the 
coal-mines of the earth fade into insignificance, — 
we know that it is conceivable that the difference 
in velocity of the earth's equatorial and polar regions 
may be utilized by succeeding generations to do their 
work. But we have to be content with knowing that 
our forefathers proportionately used the tides and the 
winds to a much greater extent than we do, and, 
bowing to our destiny, we dig up coal and place it on 
the surface of the earth at after all a very cheap rate, 
pulverize and screen out of it, and so waste, a great 
proportion, and then by rail and vessel send what is left 
hundreds and thousands of miles at great expense, to 
be burned up under a boiler, and to have utilized, per- 
haps, one per cent., or, by a great triumph of engineer- 
ing, as much as ten per cent, of its energy. Then 
when the energy which its carbon represents in be- 
ing uncombined with oxygen is gone, and it is burned, 
we find plant life undoing our wasteful work and 
gradually separating the carbon and oxygen again. 
But this separation is so slow that, as far as econom- 
ics are concerned, it might almost as well not take 
place at all. For our healths this separation may be 
very important — it is hard to say how much or how 
little. 

The steam-engine is a dreadfully crude affair. Every 
electrician gloats over his dynamos and motors with 



THE STEAM-ENGINE. 109 

returns of ninety per cent, and upwards. He is 
troubled by no second law of thermo-dynamics, ex- 
cept for thermopiles, which are accordingly rejected 
in practice. All is clear sailing for him, except that, 
having built a dynamo of ninety- eight per cent, effi- 
ciency, he has at one fell swoop to lose ninety per cent, 
of its efficiency, because he has to turn the armature, 
and a steam-engine is the most generally available 
means for doing this. The steam-engine undoes his 
economies. 

Everything in a station hinges on consumption of 
coal. It is a question, as already intimated, of how 
many pounds of coal per hour must be burned to 
keep a little filament of carbon at a white heat. 
Sixty inches of such filament gives a rough gauge of 
a horse-power. It will make a great difference in div- 
idends if one and a half pounds do it, or if ten pounds 
have to be burned each hour to keep up the supply 
of energy for these few inches of ignited carbon 
filament. 

Considering then the station as a contrivance for 
converting chemical potential energy into electric 
kinetic energy, its successful running consists merely 
in developing the highest possible efficiency in the 
conversion. Unfortunately the conversion involves 
a number of steps, each one with its own loss, so that 
a very small amount indeed of the total chemical en- 
ergy is utilized. It does seem a pity that after coal 
has been mined and transported hundreds of miles 



110 RKAIv ECONOMY IN STATIONS. 

we only get, as just said, a few per cent, of its poten- 
tial good out of it. So, if you have to run a station, 
concentrate your ideas on real economy. Figure out 
every day the efficiency in practical engineering 
units of each of the appliances from boiler to dynamo, 
and thus keep a watch over the whole. A waste 
located is half-cured. 

Real economy is the goal, not book-keeping econ- 
omy. By proper or rather improper systems of rec- 
ords the books can be made to show much higher 
figures than are actually obtained. Thus suppose a 
superintendent is proud of his boilers. He weighs 
the coal, weighs the ashes, and measures the water. 
The weight of the ashes is subtracted from the coal. 
But as the ashes are raked out wet from the ash-pans 
and are weighed wet, the coal is favored to the ex- 
tent of the water. The latter of course figures as 
ashes, and is subtracted along with the weight of the 
true ashes from the coal to get the carbon. 

This is a small matter, but it is an error ; it favors 
the boilers, and, in conjunction with the system of wet 
ash-pans, it accumulates error. All the water evapo- 
rated in the ash-pans is uselessly evaporated; all re- 
moved with the ashes is wasted, — and on the books 
all this may be credited to the work of the boiler. 

A chemical determination is executed sometimes 
within a few hundredths of one per cent. One-tenth 
of a per cent, is good work. One-tenth of a per cent, 
of a ton of coal is 2\ lbs. about. Far more than 



ERRORS IN SYSTEMS OF REPORTS. Ill 



that amount may be weighed with the ashes of a ton 
of coal. A station constructed for accurate working 
should not be subject to such errors as this, and the 
carbon burned should be known within a fraction of 
a per cent. 

The above is only given as an example of how an 
error may creep in. An obvious way to correct it 
would be to make an allowance for the water ab- 
sorbed by the ashes. This could be determined accu - 
rately on a sample every now and then, and the tare 
thus obtained could be employed for a month at a 
time. The error is also an example of a temptation, 
for it increases the recorded efficiency of the boilers. 
It is an example of "doctoring" the record. If a 
chemist works to within a fraction of a per cent., 
using only a gram of substance, an equal accuracy at 
least should be obtained where hundreds of tons are 
operated on. 

There are fads in everything, and if a superintend- 
ent's fad applies to the engines, the above "doctoring" 
will probably not please him. It will be against 
the engines. This suggests another reason why the 
utmost accuracy should be adhered to. An unfair 
figure in favor of one step tells against the other 
steps, and is robbing Peter to pay Paul. 

Do not, therefore, yield to fads. Faith need not be 
placed in a single kind of boiler, when there are pos- 
sibly others as good or better. Do not acquire the 
idea that only one kind of high-speed engine will run 



112 PREJUDICES. 



a dynamo rightly, when in a neighboring city some 
other plant may be doing better work with a low-speed 
engine than you can do with a high-speed one. 

One very common infirmity of engineers is connect- 
ed with compound, triple and quadruple expansion 
engines. They are apt to imagine that the ne plus 
ultra of economy inheres in some one of these types 
of engines. Yet it is hardly going too far to say that 
nine out of ten engineers would be unable to say why 
a compound engine is more economical than a single 
one. 

It is therefore dangerous to allow one's self to be 
carried away by overenthusiasm. Revolutionary 
devices in engineering are not frequent. One is 
fortunate and probably long-lived who sees the ad- 
vent and success of a single great improvement 
which is itself destined to endure. The present 
generation has seen revolutions brought about by 
electricity, but the reference is to engineering in 
general— not to the fin de Steele miracle which elec- 
tricity has shown itself. A revolution is to be looked 
for any time from its more extended applications. 

You must make steam engineering a very special 
study. Carnot's cycle, the Carnot diagram, the laws 
of thermo-dynamics, the laws affecting the econom- 
ical expansion of steam in an engine cylinder must 
be familiar. From these more basic subjects the 
descent must be made to subjects of minor significance 
yet of no less importance. These affect the motion 



IMPROPER PRACTICES. 113 

of steam in pipes, the loss in its energy due to 
cooling in such pipes, the evils of throttling, the proper 
use of lubricants, even the proper packing of a steam- 
engine is a subject to be studied. Sometimes with 
hammer and a calking-iron, perhaps with an old 
cold chisel, or, if mercifully disposed, with a stick of 
wood an engineer will jam packing into a stuffing- 
box on a cylinder head, and will then with spanner 
set up the gland in the effort to get the place steam- 
tight. Before he stops he is sure to get it very tight 
indeed, in one sense — tight for the piston-rod, which 
has to fly in and out many times a minute. Power 
is wasted in such practices. Energy is required to 
overcome the friction incident to such packing. 
After a while the piston-rod perhaps begins to score, 
and then the packing is harder to manage than ever. 
So all through the list there are endless details to 
be understood. Many will be acquired by observa- 
tion. Never go through an engineering establish- 
ment without learning something new. It may only 
be the way of lining up an engine, or some trick in 
connection with the journal boxes, or crank-pin lu- 
brication, — whatever it is, it is worth learning, if only 
for comparison. A good observer has great advan- 
tages in acquiring information in this way. 



114 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Manufacturing Engineer. 

different work done in factories dynamo 

and motor building — improvements in de- 
sign — faults of cheap motors — improving 

the magnetic circuit small factories — 

bad installation of good machinery — mak- 
ing parts for distribution of electric 

power meters and their defects testing 

materials. 

The construction of machinery is one branch of 
electrical engineering. From the great factory where 
generators of hundreds of kilowatts capacity are 
turned out day after day to the one or two room 
work-shops where a few men find occupation 
in manufacturing condensers or some similar ap- 
pliance — from the telegraph instrument makers' 
where little bits of brass and steel are worked 
up by the thousands into keys, sounders and 
switches to the model maker who busies himself with 
special apparatus only — from one extreme to the 
other a very wide and diversified field is passed over. 



FACTORIES OF DIFFERENT CLASSES. 115 

Thus when we speak of an electrician manufacturing 
electrical machinery we may refer to the superintend- 
ent of a factory, to the foreman of a room or depart- 
ment in a factory, or to some one who, depending 
on himself alone, is slowly building up a business on 
an independent basis. The separate branches of 
this part of the profession are as different as separate 
manufacturing industries. In one case castings 
of one to twenty tons will be in question, where 
large dynamos have to be made. In the other case 
the brass parts of telegraph sounders, and the cores 
of sounders and of relay magnets may be among the 
largest pieces produced. The manufacturer of con- 
densers handles tinfoil, paper, mica and paraffine ; 
the maker of storage batteries uses lead, lead-oxides 
and glass or rubber cells. It would seem as though 
any one could find something adapted to his scope 
in such a variety. 

Perhaps the manufacture of dynamos and motors is 
the branch that appeals most strongly to the younger 
electricians. There is something attractive in the 
idea of supplying the great engines of electricity, of 
being in the fullest sense an electrical engineer, in 
dealing with the machines which have created the 
electricity of the present day. They are the subjects 
of calculations which have great interest, as involv- 
ing the application of lines of force, reluctance of ma- 
terials and distribution of core and pole pieces. The 
symmetry of the field depending on the shape of the 



116 DYNAMO AND MOTOR FACTORIES. 

pole-pieces and affecting the action of the armature, 
the work of the latter is changed by adding to or taking 
from the different parts of the poles. There is some- 
thing fascinating in the idea of changing the action of 
an armature by simply varying the shape of the appar- 
ently inert and actually motionless castings or forg- 
ings which conduct or regulate the distribution of 
the lines of force. 

Magnetic leakage and its prevention appeal also to 
the mind of the electrical constructor. The ideal 
dynamo field, where the aerial lines of force all go 
straight across the air-gaps, and where one-half of 
the energy given to the field is not uselessly expended 
in maintaining lines of force arching about in curves 
as pretty as useless, — this ideal is a sort of flying 
Dutchman which never can be caught, but which still 
tempts pursuit, though we know it to be hopeless. 
But when the cheaper type of motors with long slim 
field cores and attenuated pole-pieces made of the 
poorest quality of chilled castings are inspected, 
there seems plenty of room for improvement in de- 
sign. For it is as easy to design a small dynamo 
correctly as it is to design a large one ; and if one is 
making even toy motors for boys, it seems a pity to 
design them so badly that half the energy goes to the 
field, and that most of what gets there is absolutely 
wasted. Thin cores of iron of low permeability have 
much to do with the sins of dynamos and motors. 

Sylvanus P. Thompson is emphatic in his affirmation 



MAGNETIC LEAKAGE. 117 

of the merits of what he calls a stumpy electro-mag- 
net. His very interesting account of the different 
shapes which investigators have given magnets is 
worthy of recommendation to the young engineer. 
Many of the attempts which have been made to do 
away with the air-gap and copper-gap reluctance 
do not seem to have been based on the right prem- 
ises. It certainly seems as if occupation for investi- 
gators could be found in improving the magnetic 
circuit of dynamos and motors. The return of energy 
is now very satisfactory, and as reduction of leakage 
does not imply a very great increase in efficiency, 
there is not room for much of improvement in this 
direction. But .what a reduction of leakage does 
imply is a reduction in size, a saving in weight and 
in cost of metal, an increase in convenience, such as 
freedom from liability to magnetize watches, and a 
more accurate working as a larger percentage of the 
field would be utilized, so that regulation would be 
regulation of a larger proportion of efficient lines of 
force and of a less proportion of waste lines. 

All this is a suggestion of work which might be 
studied in the factory. 

Again a small business can perhaps be built up 
on dynamos and motors, which business may be 
trusted in time to grow to large proportions. There 
is no need of starting a foundry— the castings can be 
made at a few cents a pound by the regular founder. 
A model shop is not even necessary ; the work can 



118 SMALL BUSINESSES. 

be drawn and sent to the model maker. The winding 
of the cores and armatures can be done very well in 
a small shop, the shape of cores and distribution of 
material can be well worked out at the drawing- 
board, and personal work upon the machines will 
give great scope for ingenuity in providing for 
details of construction. Little capital is needed, and 
if customers can be found a living can be made. 
This, however, is a very important " if." It is a word 
which has a way of taking the beauty out of many a 
project. 

In this line of manufacture you have to compete 
with cheap motors of perhaps five per cent, efficiency 
and with high-class motors and dynamos of ninety- 
five per cent, efficiency. It is easy to improve on the 
first : there is little chance of improving on the lat- 
ter. It follows that if any young man believes that 
he is going to make a field magnet core which will 
revolutionize dynamo building, he is in all probability 
going to be disappointed; a thing very good for the 
moral system, but rather a bitter tonic in some cases. 

One aggravation about the business is that the best 
efforts at the production of high-grade machinery 
may be nullified by the use made of the product. 
Poor connections, improper use of rheostats, wrong 
speed of running and other mistakes and mishaps 
may cause the best dynamo to give a very poor rec- 
ord. The business of making large dynamos has, 
however, reached very high perfection. The days 



HIGH-GRADE MACHINERY. 119 

of multiple cores, involving wasted copper and use- 
lessly absorbed energy, have gone by. Permeance 
and reluctance mean as much to the dynamo builder 
as do conductance and resistance to the working elec- 
trician. Ideas have become greatly clarified in the 
last few years. 

It is easy to see that the dynamo builder is in pos- 
session of one of the most interesting fields of work. 
It is one which seems to afford a chance for the be- 
ginner in business. It is one which gives temptation 
for experimentation, temptation which may often lead 
to fruitless work, the reason of which is that the best 
electricians of the world have been giving attention 
to dynamo design. 

An electrician may do other things than experi- 
ment in dynamo design and calculations. There is 
much to be done in the conveyance of heavy currents, 
in providing insulation for heavy conductors, and in 
solving the problems of constructions for outdoor 
work, such as the prevention of leakage on a long 
trolley circuit ; these and similar things are problems 
which verge upon another branch of the profession, 
but the factory has to supply the parts for carrying 
out the requirements. New problems are constantly 
coming up, and quantities of old ones are un- 
solved. A small low-speed motor of any reasonable 
efficiency, gearing that will stand the wear of reduc- 
ing 2000 revolutions per minute to a hundred or less, 
— such are examples of the old-time problems on 
which work may still be done. 



120 METERS. 



The subject of electric meters is an attractive one. 
Much as people have complained of the gas-meter, 
they have more reason to complain of the ampere- 
meters supplied for metering electric energy. These 
are based on a constant voltage. But the fall of a 
single volt of potential brings about a directly meas- 
urable decrease in energy, of which the meter takes 
only indirect account. The fall, however, involves 
much more than the percentage of watts due to the 
difference between no and 109 volts, for it makes all 
the 1'imps burn at less than their proper candle- 
power. The customer is buying light, and he suffers 
an injustice if he is required to pay for energy that 
gives an imperfect rendering of light. He cares 
nothing for obscure energy. Yet, as far as his meter 
is concerned, it would go on metering energy to the 
debtor side of his account if the voltage fell to 100 
and lamps were turned on in vain hopes of getting 
some light, they remaining black while using energy. 

The system of metering electric energy seems 
open to improvement. The best minds in the pro- 
fession have not succeeded in evolving a perfect 
meter. In a constant potential system the factory 
itself, in maintaining the voltage, is a portion of the 
meter. Like improvements in all branches of elec- 
tricity, it is hard to improve the existing appliances 
for measuring the article supplied. But a true en- 
ergy meter, or a meter that would automatically cease 
recording as the voltage fell below a certain minimum, 
would seem a desirable thing. 



TESTING MATERIALS. 121 

There is another good feature connected with a 
factory. It is the possibility of expansion and of de- 
velopment of new lines of work. A small works 
building a few dynamos may expand and supply 
lamps and full lighting plants. It may branch out 
into telegraphic instruments or storage batteries. 

An electric light and power station in the normal 
state of things grows, but its growth is mere expan- 
sion without the branching out into new lines. A 
very large and a very small plant are the same thing 
except in size. The same qualities and capacity of 
engineer are required in both large and small sta- 
tions, but the electric factory brings in everything. 
The glass-blower's art and the chemist's profession 
join with the machinist's trade in its productions. A 
bright, well-educated electrician will find a manufac- 
turing establishment where electric goods are made a 
most congenial field of work. 

Materials have to be tested. A knowledge of the 
resistance of insulators, their dielectric capacity, the 
qualities of copper as a conductor, and of iron as the 
material of a magnet-core, or transformer-core, is of 
the utmost importance to the constructor. Every 
sample differs from others of the same material. The 
figures of the books for constants of copper, German 
silver, iron and other materials are but approxima- 
tions. The rightly ordered factory will be constantly 
in need of new determinations. The testing electri- 
cian may find opportunities for good work without 



122 BEST FIELD FOR WORK. 

ever leaving the laboratory. He may have much 
to do in determining what material should be used in 
dynamos, and in so doing he determines their good 
or bad qualities. 

Laboratory work plays so important a role in 
many factories that the necessity which exists for 
an engineer to be familiar with electrical tests of 
all kinds is obvious. 

This may read as if factory work was the best field. 
But there is no best. Simply pointing out the 
features of each branch of the profession and ventur- 
ing to show that there are lines of investigation and 
improvement well worth following up, pointing out 
these things in order to inculcate the wisdom of be- 
ing on the lookout for chances to improve, this does 
not imply that the electrical manufacturer is higher in 
the profession than the outside engineer who erects 
factories and railroads and puts up plants of all de- 
scriptions. All kinds of work are attractive and 
interesting, and we can but hope to present the best 
side of each kind of electrical work, with some 
glimpses of the worst side. 



123 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Constructing Engineer. 

the erection of plants — general knowledge 

required the generating plant and its 

functions — boilers and engines advanced 

system of running plants practice and 

THEORY. 

One branch of the engineer's art consists in the 
erection of electric plants. Such may be power or 
light plants, including the central station where the 
electric energy is generated, and the distributing 
system in use outdoors and in the houses of custom- 
ers. Trolley work, underground conduit and cable 
work also come under this head. 

The thorough engineer should be able to design 
and lay cut all of the plant which he is concerned 
with. This includes the buildings and roofs as well 
as the counter-shafting and machinery. The old- 
fashioned engineer in other departments did all such 
work in the days when electricity was unknown. 
But now the great contracting establishments take 
this off one's hands, and bids can be asked for the 
whole establishment, from foundation to roof-truss, 



124 CONTRACT BUILDERS. 

from steam-gauge to dynamo. A man who lazily 
sits at a desk and dictates letters asking for bids, who 
opens the same and selects the lowest, and then 
abandons the site to the operations of contractors, 
will call himself an engineer, although ignorant of 
the relative degrees of difficulty involved in the con- 
struction of a one-faced or two-faced brick wall, and 
perhaps unable to appreciate the true intricacies of 
an eight-inch wall pointed on both sides. 

If you call yourself an engineer, be one. If you 
are to attend to the erection of generating stations, 
try to know something of stone-work, of brick-laying 
and of carpentry. Remember-that a contractor does 
nothing for fun and little for glory. Duty to your 
employers exacts close watch of their operations on 
your part. 

But one may claim to be an electrical engineer 
only and not a civil engineer. But civil or uncivil, 
an electrical engineer, without any assumption of uni- 
versal knowledge, may have common-sense enough 
to know how buildings are constructed, to know 
that a wall should be plumb, to know that 
thin mortar joints look better and are better than 
thick ones. If Portland cement is prescribed, he can 
readily rig up a simple machine for testing the 
strength of briquettes. If he has followed the sug- 
gestions contained in this work, his education will 
have carried him far enough to enable him to do this 
much and more without any very prolonged study. 



SUPERVISION OF CONTRACTORS. 125 

But do not let him fall into the error of suppos- 
ing himself to be a universal genius. A man cannot 
have a profound knowledge of everything in this pro- 
fession. So an engineer is perfectly justified in call- 
ing in expert assistance in superintending important 
work. Special inspectors may justly be required by 
him for the protection of his company. 

When the plans for the building are in question, 
including the location of engines and dynamos, the 
arrangement of counter-shafts and situation of the 
boilers, it would be well to examine other electric sta- 
tions, so as to get hints as to disposition of parts from 
them. An electric power station is but a giant coal- 
consuming agency, the potential chemical energy of 
the coal and oxygen of the air being converted into 
the kinetic energy of heat and that into the mechan- 
ical energy of the engines. This in its turn develops 
the electric energy to be sent over the mains and 
wires of the distributing system. 

The plant is to be considered a unit. It is one 
thing — an entity devoted to one single purpose, the 
absorption of the potential energy of separate carbon 
and oxygen and the production of kinetic electric 
energy. This operation has to go on day and night 
under accurate superintendence. The superintend- 
ence in question is to go to secure the saving of 
every pound of coal and of every day's labor possi- 
ble, which exacts a distribution of parts conducive 
to such ends. The works must be systematically 



12!3 ECONOMY OF STEAM PRACTICE. 

arranged so that everything can be done as cheaply 
as possible, and so that complete oversight of all 
operations shall be easy. 

For the sake of economy the most advanced type 
of boilers and engines must be chosen. The second 
law of thermo-dynamics is not being precisely beaten, 
but is being robbed of part of its terrors by the use 
of very high-pressure steam worked to great expan- 
sion. Exhaust steam might theoretically be far be- 
low the temperature of boiling water. The great 
trans-Atlantic steamships are models in this respect. 
If a table of data of ocean greyhounds for the last 
ten years is inspected, the rapid rise in steam pressures 
employed will appear remarkable. To accommodate 
the expansion several successive cylinders are em- 
ployed. This prevents too great condensation of 
water in any one cylinder. In the electric light sta- 
tion great thought and care should be devoted to 
getting good engines. A ship at sea in a gale, tumb- 
ling and rolling about as if ready to go to pieces, 
should not be able to give a modern electric gener- 
ating station any points on economy of steam gener- 
ation. Yet it is to be feared that it sometimes can. 

The engines must be a subject of consideration. 
A fad for high-speed engines, a fancy for an engine 
of fewest parts, an idea that it is a great thing to 
cast cylinder-head and bed-plate in one piece, should 
not be the controlling motives in buying them. 
There are important generalities that apply to all 



DEFECTS IN STEAM PLANT. 127 

engines, and these the engineer should take cogni- 
zance of. A cylinder exposed, unlagged, to the air, 
steam-pipes which wire-draw the steam, and cause a 
good part of its energy to be expended before it 
reaches the throttle-valve, a tightly packed stuffing- 
box through which the steam has to force the reluc- 
tant piston-rod, a setting of the valves which cushions 
the piston inordinately, — these and many other de- 
fects have to be guarded against. 

The erecting engineer may have at his service the 
best dynamos and boilers, and all may be spoiled by a 
bad engine. If the latter is also of the best quality, 
bad piping and other defective features may spoil its 
efficiency. 

In the steam generating part of the plant, the boiler- 
room, there is room for engineering. A hot fire-box 
and a cold chimney are the first signs of efficiency there. 
This efficiency the boilers may give, and yet it all 
may be lost. Want of adequate protection of the 
boiler from loss of heat may destroy entirely the 
furnace economy. Good setting of the boilers and 
proper protection against loss of heat by radiation 
are of the greatest importance. 

The advanced system of running plants is to weigh 
the coal, weigh the ashes, and weigh or measure the 
water. The arrangement of the boiler plant must 
favor the easy carrying out of these operations. If 
anything has to be hoisted, ashes will be cheaper to 
hoist than coal. Throughout there is room for com- 



128 PLANS AND DETAILS . OF WORKS. 

mon-sense. The books may disclose the accepted 
sizes of pipes ; your plan will be an improvement 
on this if you will use pipes of twice the sectional 
area. But if you do not protect your pipes by 
non-conducting covers, the large pipes, on account 
of their larger cooling service, may be worse than the 
small ones. 

In all the arrangement of details and planning of 
the works a good strong judgment will do' wonders. 
The effect of all your good work will be possibly 
quite perceptible, but here, as in all engineering, it is 
very hard to make much of an advance on the work 
of your predecessors. A great deal of thought and 
of expense may be involved in some of your- new 
ideas, and so meager a result obtained, as not to jus- 
tify you in carrying them out. It is wonderful how 
well an idea may appear on paper and how poorly it 
may work out in practice. 



129 



CHAPTER XIV. 

The Station Engineer. 

the qualities required — dealing with mankind 
— the public complaints — importance of 

COURTESY — SKILLED WORKMEN PROMOTION 

FROM THE RANKS — STATION ECONOMY THE 

PRESIDENT — EXECUTIVE ABILITY DEPENDENCE 

ON THE FACTORY. 

An engineer may have the good fortune to be en- 
gaged in the erection of a plant which he is to run. 
Then he can arrange every detail to suit his own 
ideas with the certainty that he is working for an ap- 
preciative audience. But often the engineer who is 
to conduct and superintend the operations of a plant 
has to possess a different range of qualities than 
those possessed by a constructor. Often, as 
has been said, an engineer will be the nominal 
erector of a plant, while it will have been really due 
to the contractors, and after they are through he will 
receive the plant and proceed to get it into regular 
operation. Some of the qualities which the station 
engineer requires are touched on elsewhere. 

He is a manager of men ; he not only has to man- 
age workmen of the laboring and of the technical 



130 COMPLAINTS OF CUSTOMERS. 

classes, but he also has a more or less direct inter- 
course with the public. The public, as the customers of 
the company, are served by him, and their complaints 
sooner or later reach him. If an electric light and 
power station is in his charge and the voltage falls a 
little, he is robbing the customers of an immense 
total of light, and will be apt to hear from them very 
soon. A variation of speed in the engines will be re- 
flected over the entire area of the district in a fluctu- 
ation of the lights. 

The public may never know the engineer, but they 
will know where the office of the company is, and 
thither they will wend their way with complaints or 
will write in case of trouble. These complaints will 
be passed on to the engineer, so that he will be in 
constant touch with his public, as long as things go 
wrong. His study of human nature will find a good 
field for exercise and practical application if the 
works are not well run. 

As long as the operations at the works go smoothly 
the public will be little heard from. They have now 
been educated in electricity. They do not amuse 
themselves by searching for weak spots on conductors 
or on arc-lamp frames whence to take shocks. If a 
carbon filament gives way, the accident is taken phil- 
osophically. They have by some mysterious process 
learned to accept the bills rendered for electric ser- 
vice as correct, something they never would do in 
the case of gas bills. So, if you ever reach the point 



MEETING COMPLAINTS. 131 

of having a station put in your charge, you will find a 
pretty well-trained set of customers to be served. 
By keeping your engines and belts in good shape, 
and by selecting good men to regulate the output as 
to the potential or current, you should have no 
trouble in pleasing the public. 

But if things go wrong, the complaints must be met. 
Here courtesy will apply. A polite treatment of a 
complaint is appreciated by the complainer, and is 
accepted as an apology. " A soft answer turneth 
away wrath." If the engineer never meets the cus- 
tomers, he may have to dictate measures to the secre- 
tary or other representative of the company who 
does meet them. Let him put himself in the place 
of the official, and in the light of his own technical 
knowledge see how he would answer the complain- 
ers. Then he can impart the general statement to 
the official in question. 

Laboring men" have to be dealt with, which is not 
a very difficult matter. But there will also be a more 
troublesome task in handling technical workmen, men 
who have a slight knowledge of electric work, and 
who are perhaps unduly impressed with their own 
superiority due to such knowledge. Such men are 
most useful. They have a detailed knowledge of 
certain things, which is valuable, and would be well 
worth possessing. But its range is very limited. It 
therefore is necessary to keep them within their 
prerogatives, and because a man knows just how to 



132 PRACTICAL EDUCATION. 

humor a refractory lamp, he must not be accepted as 
counselor in the operations of a station. 

A young man may work up to the position of sta- 
tion superintendent by promotion from the ranks. 
He may begin at the very' lowest position. If he 
does so and gradually works up, he will obtain this de- 
tailed knowledge of which we have spoken. Such a 
graduate of practical life, if he possesses the other 
qualities and education enough, will make the best 
kind of a manager. The men will soon find that he 
has the same precise knowledge upon which they 
pride themselves, however slight in extent it is in 
their own individual cases. Any trouble is quickly 
met and remedied. An electric company of the sort 
described should encourage students. As the navy 
or army has its cadets, the electric industry should 
have the same. Perhaps the simile or designation of 
cadets applies better to college students. But in the 
army or navy some of the best officers have worked 
up from the ranks, and the same is true of the elec- 
tric industry. The younger men should be encour- 
aged, for in them is the making of the best grade of 
engineers and managers. 

Mechanical and steam engineering will constitute 
a great part of the work of the superintendent of a 
plant. While everything is subordinate to electric 
energy and its generation and distribution, a few 
simple rules will cover the ground of most of the 
electrical problems. But the engines must run with 



PLANT EFFICIENCY. 133 

exact regularity; the boilers must be managed with the 
utmost skill, and economy must be obtained in all. The 
exact registry of coal, water and ashes gives the cri- 
terion of the work that is doing. The electric energy 
delivered, reckoned in watts, gives the other figure for 
reckoning station economy, while the units paid for 
by the customers tell how efficient is the distri- 
bution — the average drop is the criterion of this 
efficiency. Then from the pounds of coal burned in 
proportion to the watts paid for is deduced the total 
efficiency of the generating and distributing plant 
reckoned as a unit. 

A business man will soon grasp the above general- 
ities. A little figuring will enable him to see how 
much coal is burned to extract one dollar from a 
customer. He will easily get similar labor figures. 
A good president or executive officer will hold an en- 
gineer down to a very exact account of expenditures 
and results. 

In the successful conduct of a generating station 
and distributing plant a full knowledge of electrical 
engineering combined with that indefinable quality 
termed executive ability is required The calcula- 
tions to be made are few and simple ; they are all 
done in the factory. The dynamos in their windings 
and shapes of core embody some of them. The 
measuring instruments are all standardized. All 
ought to run smoothly. But sometimes things go 
wrong, and "bugs," as the telegraphers named them, 



134 THE SUPERINTENDENT'S WORK. 

have to be located and got rid of. To do this it is 
evident that a thorough knowledge of the subject is 
required, together with a certain amount of instinct 
or intuitiveness. 

The preparation needed for this position is 
best obtained by the means already suggested, by 
graduating from the ranks of station employes. But 
in the general education it is rarely worth while to 
make any special reference to it in one's studies. If 
you do and expect to stumble by good luck and your 
merits into such a position, you will be apt to find 
that, while the unexpected does not always come to 
pass, the expected has a great way of not happening. 

In station management the superintendent is cap- 
tain of his ship, and within his own limits is supreme. 
This is always a pleasant feature. Yet the position 
is far from being a high one. A plant gets to run- 
ning like a clock, with now and then an annoying 
break-down or accident, and there is no pretense 
that very high abilities are required in superintend- 
ing its operations. 

If new electric machinery is wanted, the factory 
supplies it. There is not the least occasion for the 
station superintendent to have more to say about a 
new dynamo than to specify its capacity or constants. 
He will have nothing to do with its design or struct- 
ural peculiarities. He receives everything in the 
way of supplies in the ready-made condition, and his 
hand can hardly leave the mark of his individuality 



THE FACTORY AND THE STATION. 135 



upon a collection of machinery with whose origina- 
tion he had nothing to do. There is often a feeling 
of subordination to the factory, which feeling some- 
times assumes an unpleasant aspect, when it seems 
as if the factory supplied the brains. 

But it should be remembered that any commercial 
dynamo is the outcome of numerous trials and is 
rather a growth than an invention, and the feeling 
spoken of seems unjust. The years of modern elec- 
trical science are the creators of the dynamo ; the 
factory supplying dynamos is availing itself of these 
years of work and study, and it is quite possible that 
in the factory no one has in the full sense designed 
the dynamos made. 

The species of jealousy described is out of place 
and to be deprecated. The station engineer, by the 
selective processes of modern life, is rapidly being 
differentiated from the constructing engineer. But 
both of them are guided by the experiences of others. 
Their apprenticeship is largely in the lives of their 
predecessors. 



136 



CHAPTER XV. 

Inventing. 

should. one become an inventor? — what consti- 
tutes a successful invention construction 

and invention useful and useless inven- 
tions the practical view to be taken nov- 
elty as well as originality requisite — pat- 
ent suits patents and caveats — claims — 

establishing date of invention 

What can one conversant with patents and patent 
law say about inventions ? Should an engineer or 
practicing electrician invent and patent his inven- 
tions ? It is hard to remove all prejudice and answer 
the question dispassionately. 

The qualified inventor, one who distinguishes be- 
tween the ingenuity of construction and the genius 
of invention, one who has studied up his case so 
effectually that he knows whether there is a probable 
market for his patent or for things made under it, 
one, finally, who does not overestimate the worth of 
his own achievement, such an inventor is a rarity. 
For too often the inventor is one-sided and dread- 
fully sanguine, and imbued with a sense of his own 



CAPABILITY OF INVENTING. 137 

ingeniousness. Men of one idea are grand or small 
according to the size and dimensions of the one idea, 
and according to their own qualifications for carry- 
ing out their chosen end. 

There is ample room for invention. A good inven- 
tion is a greater service to humanity than it is apt to 
be to its originator. Therefore, if capable of it, in- 
vent all you can and patent your inventions. 

But are you capable of properly inventing ? There 
is the difficult question. To decide, ask yourself the 
following queries, — if you can answer them satisfac- 
torily, you may call yourself qualified to invent. 

A difficult piece of machinery may come to a shop 
to be designed, merely a general idea of what is 
wanted being given by a rough sketch, with explan- 
atory remarks radiating from it in all directions. It 
is taken to the drawing-room, and the draughtsmen 
open fire upon it. The slight sketch and directions 
are amplified, gearing is calculated and introduced, 
and gradually a perfect machine, embodying prob- 
ably points of construction not contemplated in the 
original sketch, is produced. Yet in all this develop- 
ment there may be no invention. The original ' 
smeared and labelled sketch may embody a most in- 
genious invention, while the elaborate scale drawings 
have grafted upon it nothing but features of con- 
struction. The invention appears in each and shines 
out through it, but it is just as clear or clearer in the 
original sketch. The first question alluded to above 



138 COMMERCIAL ASPECTvS. 



is shadowed forth in the supposed case — Can you 
distinguish between construction and invention? 

The next question refers to what you will do with 
your invention. Do the public want it, or have they 
already something better ? This must be answered 
dispassionately, and you must not be led astray by 
hope. The commercial market must be judged and 
estimated. Such operation is rather within the func- 
tions of a business man than of an inventor. It 
would be well if inventors had both before and after 
their inventive periods the services of acute business 
men. Before expending time and thought upon an 
invention their associate would tell them what was 
the prospect for a market. After completing an in- 
vention the same ally would know what to do with 
it. But the question must be asked and answered 
properly by yourself if you are capable of inventing. 

Assuming that the two questions can be answered 
affirmatively in your case, invent all you wish to. A 
due attention to the requisites indicated will have a 
very restricting effect upon your work. The striv- 
ing will be after the hidden genius of invention, — mere 
ingenuity of construction will be looked down upon 
as not to the point. The most complex designs will 
be considered subsidiary to the central idea, which is 
the invention. The whole will be subsidiary to the 
public need for it. 

Mere beauty of conception will be put aside and 
the practical view taken of anything tempting to in- 



UTILITY. 139 



vention. The utility of a proposed thing will be 
duly considered and weighed before time and thought 
are expended on inventing it. There is no glory in 
inventing, — it should not be regarded as a scientific 
achievement, but only as a practical one. Invention 
stands upon another plane than do investigation 
and discovery. The latter may be entered on from 
pure love of knowledge and without any considera- 
tion of the practical aspect of the case. The ideal 
of a pure scientist is to make original and theoret- 
ically important discoveries, — the ideal of an invent- 
or is to make original, novel and practically valu- 
able inventions. 

Thus the inventor seems to stand upon a less lofty 
plane than does the pure scientist, and perhaps he 
does so. The one strives for money, the other for 
glory. The majority of the readers of this work 
have probably a due regard for the emoluments of 
the profession. The money derived from laboring in 
it is earned legitimately, and is a right end to have in 
view. Therefore, if you can do so, invent. 

If you do invent, be prepared for disappointment. 
The Patent Office may be the first to nip your aspira- 
tions in the bud by showing an anticipation of your 
invention. What you have invented may be original 
but not novel. " Great minds leap," and some one 
may have trodden your path before you. 

If the ordeal of the Patent Office is passed, the 
making a business success out of your patent is a 



140 PATENT SUITS. 



difficult task, and one for which you may be alto- 
gether unfitted. An active business man is wanted, 
who will see enough in your invention to justify him 
for the time being in taking up the role of a man of 
one idea and of pushing your invention on to success. 

The next ordeal may be that of patent suits. 
These you may have to bring, or you may have to 
defend yourself against others suing you for in- 
fringement. Money is required, and the patent has 
to undergo adjudication by the Court, perhaps to be 
declared invalid and worthless. 

It is an anomaly of our patent laws that the scope 
of an invention is limited by its claims. A bad 
attorney, in drawing up a patent, may give it insuffi- 
cient claims. For this there is no help. The courts, 
in the re-issue decisions, have virtually estopped the 
one avenue of relief that was open for inventors in 
this regard. Everything depends on the claims. 

Hence a competent attorney should be employed 
to take out the patent. He should be one having 
experience in law suits. His talent should lie in an 
ability to draw up claims which will stand examina- 
tion in the courts, — he should not simply try to get 
your invention in any shape through the Patent 
Office. 

Do not take out a caveat. This is about as useless 
a thing as our government provides. For the ten 
dollars you pay for it you get nothing except an 
agreement that the Patent Office authorities are to 



CAVEAT AND PATENT APPLICATION. 141 

inform you if any one applies for a patent for the 
same thing. If they fail to give such information, 
you can do nothing, and your caveat is useless. If 
they do so inform you, you apply for a patent, perhaps, 
losing the advantage of months in establishing your 
date of application. But if you apply for a patent, 
you at once establish this important date, and you 
can keep your application alive for an indefinite 
period. Your application is kept secret, and the first 
money spent is invested in the operation of getting a 
patent. Time and money spent on a caveat do 
nothing in this direction. 

When an invention is made, fix at once the date of 
invention. A sketch dated, signed by yourself and by 
one or two witnesses is excellent proof. It may be 
needed in interference proceedings or in patent 
suits. 



142 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Original Investigation. 

qualifications required for original research 

useless theorizing incompetent theoriz- 

ers originality — publication of results — 

writing papers. 

The primary lesson of this book is contained in 
two words — Be practical. Every one's life should be 
so, and as it fails in this, failure in everything follows. 
The scientific life should be guided by a gospel of 
work. The most abstruse mathematicians and the- 
orizers, in the eyes of those without proper insight, 
seem not to live up to this ideal, but they really do. 
No man's work has borne more practical fruit than 
Clerk Maxwell's mathematics and Sir William Thom- 
son's investigations. The latter, to be sure, is a rare 
combination of the mathematical theorizer and me- 
chanical constructor. His apparatus is in use in the 
finer operations of the science. His name will for 
many years be uneclipsed by that of any successor. 

But just in proportion as it is useful and proper for 
such men as those mentioned to investigate the lumi- 
niferous ether and to evolve theories of electricity, so 
is it useless and improper for those unqualified by 



USELESS THEORIZERS. 145 

genius and study to spend their time theorizing. 
This is no idle remark. There are numbers of people 
who consider themselves thinkers and who waste their 
energies on envolving the most absurd and useless 
theories. They will formulate a theory that the sun 
is not hot, that gravity must work in a closed circuit, 
that the earth is a dynamo, and so on. Sometimes 
their theories may be half true. Sometimes they will 
be quite absurd. But one prevailing characteristic is 
noticeable in all of them — their utter uselessness and 
inapplicability to any useful end. One of the favor- 
ite questions is this : If a gun were fired in the Desert 
of Sahara, where no ear could hear the report, would 
there be any sound ? Of course, whether there would 
or would not be, depends on whether we use the word 
" sound" in its subjective or objective sense. 

An example may even be found in the higher 
schools of science. In physics the advocates of the 
corpuscular and undulatory theories of light engaged 
in the fiercest possible contests with each other dur- 
ing the last century, and in geology the plutonic and 
neptunic schools waged war also. If, instead of de- 
voting their energies to fighting, all had united in hum- 
bly seeking the truth, science would certainly have 
been advanced. 

Therefore be slow to theorize. Study facts, work 
out analogies to fix more firmly on your mind how 
electricity acts, but do not make the sustaining of 
some absurd theory and the boring with it of all 



146 ORIGINAL WORK AND THEORIES. 

your acquaintances your mission in life. You are 
working in a field of which little is known and of 
which we may never know much. Electricity is al- 
most as great a mystery as gravitation. There is 
the more reason why we should be slow to con- 
sider ourselves the ones destined to surpass the 
greatest intellects of the world and to tell mankind 
what electricity is. 

This particular subject is considered so hopeless 
that a disposition on almost any one's part to deter- 
mine what electricity is marks such a person for 
avoidance. Incompetent theorizers, men who truth- 
fully will say that they know nothing of chemistry, 
and who next proceed to evolve fruitless ideas on 
electricity, are the unclean beasts of the profession. 

Somewhat the same may be said of independent in- 
vestigators. Work away at original things all you 
wish to. Nothing is better. But distrust its nov- 
elty. It is astonishing how hard it is to find a new 
line of work in science. So much has been done that 
it is ten to one that any particular ground has been 
covered. Sometimes the records are buried away in 
the files of a journal and are forgotten. When an 
apparently new field is entered, it would often be 
advisable for the investigator to look in books and 
also to run through the files of some electrical 
journals, to determine whether his ideas have not been 
anticipated. Mortification might have been spared 
some of our best inventors by this course. Thou- 



MECHANICAL IMPROVEMENTS. 147 



sands of workers have preceded you, and the chances 
are against your doing anything new. The so-called 
Napoleons of science, like those of finance, some- 
times come to evil ends. 

Many, we wish we could say all, of our readers 
remember the investigations of the Pickwick Club. 
Pickwick clubs are sometimes still found in the world 
of science. 

In practical, every-day work about an electric sta- 
tion or in an electric manufactory there will be many 
little improvements which will suggest themselves. 
But on trial it will be found that the selective pro- 
cesses of mechanics have generally established the 
use of methods difficult to supplant. Yet this 
line of independent experimenting should be encour- 
aged. It may lead to something, — its results are 
easily weighed and valued, — and it gives the engi- 
neer's mind more flexibility, and goes to make him 
more useful than he would be if he trod always in 
the footsteps of his predecessors. But it is very dif- 
ficult to gain anything by leaving those footsteps. 

When by original work, and what is tolerably cer- 
tain to be novel work, something has been done, it 
should be published. A young man should start 
early in the publication of what he has done. The 
practice of submitting one's self to the judgment of 
mankind by putting one's self in print has much to 
commend it. But the greatest discretion and caution 
must be exercised. 



148 PUBLICATION OF RESEARCHES. 

Be a member of an engineering society. Read 
your paper before them, so that a small audience of 
qualified men may have the chance to tear you to 
pieces. If what you say seems well received, then 
you may feel that some basis is established for its 
publication. When you submit it to the editor of a 
scientific journal, it may undergo a still more severe 
criticism. All this is good discipline and good prac- 
tice. But if self-educated in the profession, it will 
be a long time before you will reach a point when 
you will care to publish your work. 

What has been said is intended to inculcate caution 
in theorizing for your own sake as well as for that of 
others. If you do want to exercise your brain, do 
not try to evolve a theory for so recondite a subject 
as electricity until you can tell why an apple falls to 
earth. 

You must, before you write a paper, know something 
about composition. For your purposes there is one 
golden rule — Be simple. In ordinary, every-day Eng- 
lish you will find enough words for all ordinary pur- 
poses of expression. In addition you will have to use 
technical words, but that is aside from the main ques- 
tion. But do not invent words, as if the Century 
Dictionary was not big enough, — avoid all singulari- 
ties of construction, — do not try to write like Carlyle 
nor even like yourself. Simply think out what you 
have to say and say it simply. 

A confusion of statement indicates a confusion of 



WRITING. 149 



ideas. Let your writings prove that your mind is in 
good order. 

There is great difficulty in putting anything into 
writing as it should be done. Merely to express to us 
our own thoughts in the best possible language is high 
art. If you do propose to write anything for a so- 
ciety or for publication, have your thoughts and 
ideas very clear and well defined. Then put 
them into simple language. Avoid too long sen- 
tences. The jerkiness of short sentences must also 
be avoided. Do not use too many adjectives ; you 
will secure strength of expression by the use of nouns 
"The adjective is the greatest enemy of the noun, 
though it agrees with it in gender, number and case." 

This is no treatise on rhetoric and composition, 
but one good rule cannot well be omitted. It is this : 
When you feel that something which you have writ- 
ten is unusually fine and well put, let it stand until 
the next day, and then remorselessly scratch it out. 
Your satisfaction with your own writing is a strong 
proof of its bad quality. 



150 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Success. 

the race for money the nobler life the end 

for which we are adapted — honor and hon- 
esty — the human element directors and 

executive officers the business man — deal- 
ing with vanity rings and cliques — con- 
tractors — over-scrupulousness — workmen. 

Success is the goal of the ambitious young man. 
He perhaps takes up this book hoping that it will 
help him to the coveted end. But what does he 
account success ? If it is simply money that is de- 
sired, a very low ideal is created, and it would be a 
poor recommendation for our efforts, under the cir- 
cumstances of the professional life of the day, if it 
did point out a royal road to fortune. For if one 
examines the conditions of the world, he will find that 
men seek different things. Many start on the race 
in life to make fortunes, but this division rapidly 
thins out, and some of its members drop out into 
more or less contented mediocrity. Others continue 
longer in the race, and devote all their energies to 
win it. Still the dropping-out continues as weari- 



THE RACE OF LIFE. 151 

ness seizes those who make no advance, and the few- 
continue. Among these a separation presently takes 
place. A few begin to approach their ideal, and 
leave behind them a division who, in spite of ill-suc- 
cess, still keep at the weary grind, stepping on a 
tread-mill that never raises them from the level. The 
winners, and they are very few, grow rich, and, it is 
to be hoped, have got all the enjoyment they ex- 
pected out of their wealth. The losers, never hav- 
ing accepted the rest and even contentment of medi- 
ocrity, suffer the miseries of defeat, and look back on 
a life of fruitless struggle. 

This is a mild picture of the evils of the thirst for 
money and for success based on money making. 
The vision of the crowd starting on their race is not 
a pleasant one, — the scene at the end w 7 here the tri- 
umphs of selfishness are seen in contrast with the 
disappointments of selfishness is as bad, — the scenes 
along the road where the crowd is constantly thin- 
ning off, and the competitors only give up because 
they have to, is not inspiring. 

So much for those to whom money is everything. 
Theirs is not the only contest; there is a nobler race 
— a race for success, too, — but this is the success of a 
true life,, rightly led and well employed — a life into 
which troubles will come and in which a fortune may 
not be made, but which leaves behind it a memory 
of work, of honesty, and of the refinement of honesty 
termed honor. Such a life shows good done to the 



152 INSPIRATIONS. 



world in its administration of scientific knowledge — 
good in its high conception of devotion to " busi- 
ness," as pictured in the character Caleb Garth in 
George Eliot's novel " Middlemarch " — good done 
to individuals in the proper carrying on of engineer- 
ing works in which numbers of laborers are em- 
ployed — good done to the profession in the making 
of useful discoveries and in the announcement of 
them to the public as soon as made. 

The contemplation of such lives is a comfort and 
an inspiration. Energy, laboriousness and conscien- 
tiousness are their foundation-stones. 

Perhaps among those who read this book will be 
some who have the high ideal of success implied in 
the ambition of becoming a Clerk Maxwell or a Will- 
iam Thomson. If such ambition has seized any 
one, and if he is able to carry it out, he is not the one 
for whom this is written. This modest work is not 
designed for him, — his success will not depend on 
the author. 

Finally there are many who simply hope to find a 
rational chance in the struggle for existence, and 
who wish to make their living in the profession, and 
who do not aspire to great honors. 

So it appears that from the beginning men can be 
classified by the end they have in view. The sad 
failures come in choosing the wrong ends, — the crim- 
inal failures in choosing wrong methods for any end. 

A man might choose to Le a high jumper, and 



THE RIGHT MEANS TO A RIGHT END. 153 

might devote the energies of a life to trying to top 
a six-foot bar, and never succeed. His failure would 
be due to the choosing a wrong end. 

Suppose now that we cut the Gordian knot and at 
one sweep do away with this trouble about ends. 
Select no end to be attained, but only concern your- 
self with methods and practices. The trouble disap- 
pears. With honor and hard work as watch-words, 
whatever you do will be successful, whether the 
crowd appreciates it as such or not. 

You will see men going ahead of you by question- 
able methods, — honor will prevent you from envying 
them. You will see others going ahead of you by 
superior work, — interest and a high ideal will tell you 
to follow their example and work the harder. You 
will see others winning by high abilities, — these jus- 
tice tells you to admire. Then as you reach the 
middle point of your career, and are retrospective, 
you will realize your mistakes ; you may feel that had 
you taken some other way you would have done bet- 
ter ; you may see instances where a little shrewdness 
and knowledge of human nature would have helped 
you along ; you may feel that you should have done 
better ; but it will be too late. Regrets are useless. 
Go on as best you may, and if you can feel that you 
have saved your honor and conquered your laziness, 
you have not lived in vain. 

This seems a poor ideal, perhaps, but it is better 
than money making, pure and simple. It is hard to 



154 HUMAN NATURE. 

believe that you will really work hard and honestly 
and not make some success. 

But as an electrician and electrical engineer some 
few maxims for success may be given as regards your 
relations with men. As the servant of corporations 
you will have intercourse with directors and business 
executives. As engineer you will have to deal with 
laborers and foremen under your superintendence. 
You will find rings and cliques among the wealthy 
directors and among the day-laborers alike, and you 
may be mixed up with their cliques, without any voli- 
tion on your part. You will come in contact with 
manufacturers and perhaps have to criticise their 
work. How can you deal with such different types 
of humanity ? 

Human nature therefore must be recognized as an 
element in the problem you have to solve. For a 
wealthy business man to be established as president 
of an electric manufacturing works, while not con- 
versant with electrical matters, may seem to you an 
anomaly. It will seem that a merchant should know 
something of the article he deals in. But while on 
its face this would appear to be logical, it is not abso- 
lutely requisite that the merchant should possess 
such knowledge. The business of the president of 
an electric manufacturing company may be to sell 
the product of the factory, to see that its standard of 
perfection is kept up to, to look up new avenues of 
trade. The selling has no reference to volts and 



THE BUSINESS MANAGER. 155 

amperes, — the standard of perfection he takes care of 
by engaging one whom he understands to be a capa- 
ble superintendent, — looking up new country is a mat- 
ter of advertising and traveling. The less he knows 
of electricity, and the less interest he shows in the 
science and in the materials used in the dynamos, 
the more flattering is it to his superintendent. The 
want of interest in the electrical qualities of the wire 
purchased, the ignorance of what the magnetic prop- 
erties of iron, such as reluctance, are or mean, and 
the apparent indifference to what goes into the dyna- 
mos are due to strong common-sense. He realizes 
that it is a new order of thought for him, and so does 
not try to grapple with it. He feels that the products 
of his factory will be criticised by those who buy 
them, so that, whether he wants it or not, he will get 
lots of expert opinion without cost or trouble. 
Knowing that he cannot adequately criticise from his 
own knowledge, he will be unsparing in his use of the 
free criticism reaching him in the shape of complaints 
of customers. Therefore, if his superintendent or 
engineer wishes to impose upon him, and is so want- 
ing in pride and honor as to stoop to this course, it 
will be found a very risky business. Active and suc- 
cessful business men in this country are apt to be 
rather merciless in dealing with transgressors subor- 
dinate to them. 

Often men of this character have an aggravating 
way of throwing aside as of no interest all that does 



156 DETAILS AND GENERALITIES. 

not directly affect their business. This peculiarity 
must be recognized and yielded to. Commercial in- 
terests are apt to engender selfishness. If you are 
an engineer under such a president, realize that he 
has his good points, — that he is interested in things 
that are as barren to your mind as are farads and 
henries to his. Above all, do not be so conceited as 
to underestimate the merit of high business abilities. 
Your little special knowledge of electricity is prob- 
ably nothing to boast of. Do not try to look down 
on a non-professional man ; his abilities and special- 
ties lie in another direction from yours. 

The very qualities which make a man an electrician 
by nature would probably spoil him for a business 
man. So look with respect upon the great organizers 
of enterprises — those who deal in great interests, and 
who have no disposition to look into the minutiae of 
things, who would distrust themselves if they did go 
into manufacturing details, and would fear that the 
result of an attempt at doing so would lead to ne- 
glect of important things in their department. Your 
very fondness for details, and disposition to give your 
principal attention to them, feeling that the general- 
ities will take care of themselves, is exactly what is 
not wanted in business. 

Human nature has its vanity, and it is often mani- 
fest in a disinclination to acknowledge our own ignor- 
ance. Sometimes a business manager or other officer 
of a company, whose life has been spent in mercan- 



INDEPENDENCE AND CONSIDERATION. 157 



tile pursuits, will undertake to pose as an electrician 
after a few months or even weeks in the business de- 
partment of an electrical concern. This is far worse 
than the other case first described. How must such 
be dealt with ? It is not necessary always to tell a 
person how little he knows, or to offend his innocent 
vanity by pointing out his errors. It is enough to try 
to lead him right, as far as he will let you. His way 
may be smoothed for him if he will stand it. Avoid 
disputes with such, — disputes will do no good, and 
will only make trouble between you and your supe- 
rior. So study human nature a little, and do not get 
into fruitless discussion ; try to keep your own spe- 
cific knowledge in the background if necessary, and 
do nothing to show how much you know. If you are 
dealing with what appears to be a very pretentious 
person, temper the wind to the shorn lamb, and do 
not be too hard on him. His position may give him 
the power of being very hard upon you. 

Independence is not sacrificed by such a course. 
It may be rather a matter of courtesy and kindness 
that will induce one to be careful not to hurt the feel- 
ings of another in such a case as the one pictured 
above. 

Companies are often supposed to be managed by a 
board of directors who meet from time to time to 
discuss its affairs, and pass resolutions as re- 
quired for its conduct. While they nominally are 
the directors who direct the company, usually there 



158 DIRECTORS. 

is one person, either an officer or perhaps only one 
of the board, who is the real manager, and who is 
practically the whole board in one. Directors are 
often fond of exaggerating their importance to the 
concern, — they often like to persuade themselves that 
they are of some use, when they are not. Again you 
may profitably study human nature. If they visit the 
works where you are employed, do not try to show 
how little you care for them. If you meet them, re- 
member that your profession makes it your first duty 
to be a gentleman, and that nothing is more alien 
to a gentleman's character than conceit or intoler- 
ance. These directors are apt to be men of standing 
in the community, and often men of high ability in 
their own particular ways. The ethics of your profes- 
sion tell you to bow the head before such masters as 
Thompson or Rayleigh, — they do not tell you to put 
on airs of importance before those whose paths in 
life lie outside of the electrical field. 

Unfortunately cliques and rings sometimes are 
formed in companies. The engineer or superintend- 
ent is not to take sides if he possibly can help it. If 
there are two factions who try to obtain the mastery, 
there is a strong probability that, if the engineer or 
superintendent is drawn into the fight, he will" find 
himself between the upper and nether millstones, — 
he will be apt to please no one if he makes special 
efforts to please both sides, — and the end maybe the 
loss of his position. If he takes sides and his party 



DISPUTES IN COMPANIES. 159 

is defeated, he need have no uncertainty as to his 
own future. If his party wins, then his too strong 
advocacy may bring about his discharge. 

An engineer in such a case has a narrow path to 
tread, and his only rule must be to hold himself 
absolutely aloof from dissensions. This he must do 
without withdrawing himself from observation or 
seeming to avoid contact with those in the dispute. 
If an officer visits the works, the superintendent should 
act precisely as if he knew of no dispute. Without- 
committing himself he should meet his visitor and act 
as if everything was normal. The next day some 
director opposed in interest may appear. He should 
be received with the same courtesy. Thus neither 
side can be given just cause for offense, and what- 
ever the result of the supposed dispute, the superin- 
tendent may be glad if he can feel that he is not in- 
volved. 

A difficult case has been described, and it is to be 
hoped that our engineer will be spared such event- 
uality. But he may become involved in it, and if 
he cares about retaining his position, he will feel 
justly anxious. 

Another class of persons he may encounter are 
contractors. It often happens that such people have 
great influence with corporations. They may do 
work for them and take their pay in stock, thus get- 
ting a large representation on the board. The officers 
of the company may have leaned on them for advice 



160 CONTRACTORS. 



and consultation, and so may place great reliance 
upon their opinions. You may, as engineer, have to 
pronounce judgment upon their work. Here again 
you may find yourself between two fires. If you do 
not approve the work, you may incur the ire of the 
contractor, and suffer. If you do approve the 
work in order to avoid trouble with the contractors, 
you may be doing an injustice. It is better to suffer 
the loss of your position than to do the latter. There 
is always a probability or possibility that such a sac- 
rifice may be exacted by your conscience. The 
sacrifice, if made, will be its own reward ; you need 
not expect any other. It will probably never have 
its merit recognized except by yourself ^and perhaps 
by a few fellow-sufferers and companions in misfor- 
tune. So what are you to do in such a case ? 

No general rule can be given. You must be con- 
scientious. But sometimes there is danger of 
supererogation. You may go unnecessarily far. The 
least display of feeling or eagerness to condemn is 
wrong and out of place. With absolute dispassion- 
ateness review the work and form a just judgment. 
If your position requires you to report upon work, do 
so with entire absence of feeling, and, with as little 
comment as possible, state how things are. Do your 
best to avoid giving offense. Let it be seen that you 
have no bias and are only doing your duty. Then 
if the contractor takes offense, and is dishonorable, 
and has influence with the company, you will have to 
suffer. There will be no help for it. 



THE CONSCIENTIOUS COURSE. 161 

But be very cool and act slowly. When you look back 
on the affair after the lapse of years it is to be hoped 
that your course will still seem to have been the right 
one. Do nothing on impulse, and do not set your 
own standard of right and wrong above that of every 
one else. It is often not only a matter of conscience 
but of judgment. An over-scrupulous man is often 
very unsatisfactory, because his judgment is in abey- 
ance under the weight of his conscience. The con- 
science of an over-scrupulous person is little better 
than conceitedness. 

If you do feel scruples about the way of dealing 
conscientiously with such a case, consult some friend. 
Do not shut yourself t up in unhealthy introspection, 
but seek advice, and use it. Whatever you do, you 
will have a good chance of pleasing no one. If you 
leave the company in what seems to you a blaze of 
glory, you will be apt to find its brightness dimin- 
ished after the lapse of several years. 

The engineer has to manage workmen. These are 
also human beings, and are as clique-forming as any 
set of men — even as much so as the directors of a 
company. But their methods will not be apt to af- 
fect an engineer's position. As he therefore feels 
secure from the influence of what these subordinates 
can do, there is the more need of exact justice and 
charity in dealing with them. There is not for 
a real man one bit of satisfaction in discharging a 
workman for a purely technical offense, or even for 



162 DEALING WITH WORKMEN. 

a slight impatience or incivility. Your pride should 
be in the small number of workmen you discharge 
for cause, — your pride should be hurt by a large num- 
ber discharged. You should feel that this latter 
shows you a poor manager of men. Avoid despot- 
ism as you would a disease. 

You may have absolute authority, — you should 
practice the art of exercising it to the fullest extent 
when necessary, and of concealing it at all other 
times. Workmen spend much of their spare time 
and thoughts in sizing up their superintendents. If 
you have authority in your nature, they will soon find 
it out. 

An engineer need not be so sensitive about his 
own authority as to be unwilling to recognize some 
rights on the part of or some respect due to officers 
of the company in the placing of men. If a work- 
man is put in position at the request of the president 
or of a director, courtesy requires that he be con- 
sulted before such a man is permanently suspended. 

Workmen, being human, will often try to earn 
their money as easily as possible — something their 
employers also try and generally succeed better at. 
But they are hired to put in so many hours' work 
a day, and it is the engineer's duty to see that they 
do it. A man running a machine lathe at slow speed 
so that he can sit in a corner a longer time between 
the settings of the tool for a new cut would do no 
worse if he went away half an hour ahead of the 



GOOD AND BAD WORKMEN. 163 

whistle. A man who runs a tool with so dull a point 
that it takes twice as long to put a finish on his work 
as if he ground his tool properly is doing his em- 
ployer an injustice. 

It is very hard to get good workmen. Men are, on 
the average, of such low capacity that it does require 
about seven years to make mechanics of the average 
ones. Therefore, with the abandonment of the sys- 
tem of apprentices, the supply of really good work- 
men is less than the demand. We are becoming 
more accustomed to having work done poorly or 
slowly in our factories, the really good mechanic 
not being as easy to find as he formerly was. 



164 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Reading. 

english technical books — the index — reading 

a book several times — thinking reading 

an instrument — taking notes — electrical 

journals — range of reading definitions — 

collecting a library scrap-books card 

and book indexes — scrap-leaflets — rapid 
reading — biographies. 

The subject of reading cannot be adequately 
treated. So much may be read ; every book, even if 
it seems a repetition of some work already read, will 
add something to the reader's stock of information. 
The list of electrical books is increasing constantly. 
But among the many a few standards still maintain 
their position and stand well above the rest. 

Many technical books in our language are pub- 
lished in England, the scientific literature of which 
country is unfortunately subject to a very serious 
fault — one which permeates the life of the nation in 
other directions also. England has an organization 
of examinations for degrees. The effort of her edu- 
cators has been to codify education, and to make all 
the colleges tributary to certain standards. 



ENGLISH BOOKvS. 165 

Accordingly, examinations in every conceivable 
branch of knowledge are held at intervals, and to 
these come students from colleges all over the land 
as well as students who have not matriculated from 
any college. They are competitors for degrees ; 
their work has been distinctively devoted to passing 
examinations — "exams," as they term them — and 
their scope or range of study is calculated to fit these 
examinations. For such students many of the scien- 
tific books are written. Students and books alike 
are stunted by the system. 

When you take up a scientific book published in 
England, look at the title-page. If you there find 
stated that it is written for or adapted for some de- 
gree or course of the London University, if the word 
u syllabus " occurs on the title-page or in the preface, 
make up your mind that it will have a very fixed 
limit. It will be written entirely for a certain exam- 
ination. Anything outside of the lines, however im- 
portant, will be omitted. Such books should be 
looked on with suspicion as to their value here. 

A scientific book should have an index. When 
you think of buying a book, see if it has a good in- 
dex. If it has 110113, then leave it. A contents is 
better than nothing, but cannot usually take the 
place of an index. 

A good book read and reread may do more good 
than several different ones read in succession. At 
the beginning, especially, it is often useful to read the 



166 THOUGHT AND READING. 



same book several times. The real classics of the 
science will endure several perusals and improve with 
acquaintance. A good test of a book is to see if it 
will endure this. If you drift back to and reread a 
work, it speaks well for its quality. 

Thought and reading must go together. It has 
been said that an hour of thought is worth many 
hours of reading. This is often true. Nothing is 
more futile than to read to the exclusion of thought. 
It is often a form of indolence — a way of hiding one's 
own laziness. What we have read during several hours 
may be briefly thought over to good effect. Acquire 
the habit of thinking intensely over facts that your 
reading has brought before you. Think over what you 
read until you detect the weak points in your knowl- 
edge, and try to supplement these points by further 
reading. 

Treat reading as an instrument. It is a means of 
reaching a desired end, — mere reading is not the 
end. You must not feel undue satisfaction in hav- 
ing read so many books or so many pages. Your 
satisfaction should center in the ideas you have 
assimilated and have taken from the books. 

Should one make notes of their reading ? This 
depends on the individual. If you have the proper 
type of mind, you will need comparatively few notes. 
Like the hero in Charles Reade's novel, " Put Your- 
self in His Place," make your head your note-book. 
A man who has to write everything down is at a ser- 
ious disadvantage. 



ELECTRICAL JOURNALS. 167 

You must learn the art of quick reference to books. 
A library of half a dozen books will be a good one 
for practical use. You must learn their uses and 
range, so that you will know in which one to look for 
anything you want to find. It will be excellent prac- 
tice to look up other books than your own, and study 
the ground covered by them. Thus you in some 
sense make their contents your own property, — you 
know what each one is good for. 

The electrical journals should be read. One is 
enough if it is of the best. The advertising pages 
should be run over as well as the reading matter, for 
they tell what the world is doing. 

The reports of the meetings of electric light asso- 
ciations and other societies of electricians are excel- 
lent matter. They not only contain good informa- 
tion and valuable papers, but they also disclose what 
others are working at. They give a standard for 
rating one's own attainments, as in the papers and 
discussions is shown what other electricians are do- 
ing, and how deep they go into the science. 

It will not be necessary to keep your reading rig- 
orously to one line of electrical work. You may in 
one book often with benefit go over an elementary 
treatment of the whole of electricity. As a guide to 
your work your reading of course will be more 
specialized. 

Your reading must cover more ground than elec- 
tricity. You will have to be a mechanical engineer 



168 KNOWING BOOKS THOROUGHLY. 



in the broad sense, which is the sense of knowing 
something of chemistry and physics, much of the 
strength of materials and machinery, and much of 
calculations, graphic, arithmetical and algebraical. 
Your reading, therefore, must cover a wide field. 
Yet if you could be persuaded to do one thing, your 
list of books might be small. This thing would be 
to thoroughly understand and assimilate everything 
you read. It is perhaps too much to ask. Then try 
another system. Thoroughly understand and learn 
the first book you read on a given subject. Let such 
book be short, but when you are through with it know 
it. Know one book in arithmetic, one in algebra, 
one in mechanics, one in physics, one in chemistry ; 
pick out short ones, and you will have laid a founda- 
tion which you may congratulate yourself on for 
years to come. 

Under the head of reading a few words should be 
said on definitions. A good definition is something 
to cling to. You will find them all too scarce. An 
excellent plan would be for you, when reading a book 
on a given subject, to learn by heart the definitions 
of even three or four subjects intimately connected 
with it. In physics work, energy, force, momentum and 
weight are such subjects. In chemistry element, mole- 
cule, atom, molecular weight,— in mathematics expo- 
nent, radical, logarithm,— these may be taken as ex- 
amples. Electricity as your specialty should give 
you somewhat more definitions. 



EXACT DEFINITIONS. 169 

Unless you have a very retentive memory, write 
out these definitions as you learn them. Do not let 
writing take the place of memorizing, but write them 
out and preserve them. Then from time to time re- 
turn to them, and you will find that they serve a 
very useful purpose, presenting a skeleton upon 
which your structure of facts will be carried. They 
will act as a sort of memoria technica for your read- 
ing. Your constant recurrence to them during your 
reading of physics, for instance, will make them bring 
back to you the work of the hours you have spent 
over it. 

Remember that it is precisely in exactness of defi- 
nition that modern science surpasses the old. It is 
but a few years since a book was published in New 
York devoted to the supposed great doctrine of the 
conservation of force. The truth is, there is no 
such law ; for years it was preached at us ; poor 
Faraday felt that it was wrong, but with graceful 
humility bowed to authority and accepted it. So 
this conservation of force was kept as a great doc- 
trine of science until scientists learned to define — 
learned what force is, and that it is not immortal — 
learned what energy is, and that it is immortal — and 
threw overboard the absurdity that disturbed Fara- 
day, and which was quietly accepted by many 
lights in science. 

Books are expensive. Ruskin would have a man 
begin early in life to collect his library. He de- 



170 SCRAP-BOOKS. 



spises circulating libraries. But you should only go 
half-way with him. Collect your library, and it need 
only be a very small one, but use circulating libraries 
to the best of your opportunities. They are espe- 
cially to be commended for providing scientific jour- 
nals. A dozen books supplemented by intelligent 
use of a library — circulating, society or college col- 
lection — will carry you a long way. 

Owning but a small library, you will be in a fair 
way to know the books composing it thoroughly, — 
and this thoroughness of little knowledge rather than 
thinness of much knowledge is the sermon which this 
book is designed to preach. 

As just suggested, the leading electrical journals 
may be read or looked over each week. It is well to 
have the best of them your own and at your disposal. 
But often in the daily papers, magazines and else- 
where, little notes of interest electrically are en- 
countered. Certain data, such as resistance and volt- 
age of different arc lamps or batteries, will be seen 
in electrical journals, or, perhaps, will be specially 
ascertained for some purpose. It is a pity to let 
such matter escape. Scrap-books or leaves are the 
proper repository for them. 

With scrap-books every one is familiar, but it is not 
one in a hundred that arranges them systematically. 
The best way, all things considered, is to paste in all 
cuttings, or write in any important item, without any 
attempt at order. 



THE CARD INDEX. 171 

The next thing is an index. This may be made on 
the card principle if the book assumes size enough. 
Or, if the scrap-book is small, a good contents and a 
complete index for it can be written. It is not neces- 
sary to make the alphabetical division go further than 
the first letter. Thus all the A's can be grouped to- 
gether in the order they come in, and the same can be 
done for all the other letters. If you make a card 
index, then you can, as one scrap-book after another 
is added to your list, simply keep up the index, the 
one answering for any number of books. 

If you start a card index, you may very well include 
in it references to important points treated in books. 
Thus under "curve, characteristic" any number of 
references to books could be given. This practice 
would obviate in many cases the writing of notes in 
the scrap-book, for of course it will not do to destroy 
books by cutting scraps from them. A good practice, 
if you wish to carry out this idea, is to carry a dozen 
cards with you when you go to a library, or have 
them near you when reading at home, and enter on 
them any references which it seems likely will be use- 
ful. A fountain pen of the anti-blotting kind is use- 
ful for this sort of work. 

Study to use cards only for really good references ; 
do not put down indifferent things, or you will run 
into the danger of becoming a card collector only, 
and have no time for anything else. The card index 
must be servant, not master — a means for an end, and 
not itself the end sought for. 



172 PRESERVATION OF CUTTINGS. 

The handwriting for cards should be clear and 
good. Every one must be written out very carefully, 
as bad writing will disfigure the collection greatly. A 
very open back hand is excellent. 

Scraps may also be preserved on leaves. For this 
purpose a quantity of sheets of paper cut to uniform 
size and of good quality for being pasted on is re- 
quired. A single scrap or cutting, or more than one 
of very closely related scraps, go on a single sheet. 
Only one side is pasted on. Holders for these 
are made by doubling a piece of brown paper a little 
over twice the size of the leaves. The latter may be 
seven by nine inches or thereabouts. Each cover 
may be numbered, and will hold twenty or thirty 
leaves. Each sheet is numbered individually, and is 
marked with its cover's number. A general index 
gives the desired reference to cover number and sheet 
number. 

Another way is to put a title on each cover and put 
into it scraps coming under such title, which must be 
quite a general one. In this case an index may be 
made for each of the little portfolios. 

There is one trouble with scraps. They are apt 
to lose value year by year. The information 
contained in them either becomes antiquated and use- 
less, or it becomes so well learned by frequent refer- 
ence, that you need no scrap-book reference. This 
is merely one development or phase in the art of car- 
rying your note-book between your shoulders. 



THE INDEX RE RUM. 173 

The best advice would seem to be this — to collect 
scraps or to make up an index rerum, as the 
general card index may be termed, always with the 
exercise of great discrimination, and to collect and 
note rather too little than too much. 

The index rerum or card index of things may be 
made to apply to everything you do. When working 
at experimental chemistry you may encounter inter- 
esting points. These may be referred always or al- 
most always to some part of the text-book or of some 
book on chemistry. Then the insertion of a card 
reference to the text-book in the index will fix the 
fact for future use. Thus a book is made subsidiary 
to chemical work, and supplies the requisite for in- 
dexing your work. Your own private notes are apt 
to be of little value until you advance pretty far in 
the profession. Refer if possible to books. 

There are two ways of reading. One is to cover 
as much ground as possible. Every book is more or 
less diffuse, and much can be skipped. Unless you 
feel that you have a very vigorous understanding and 
analytical powers, a dangerous liberty will be taken 
if skipping is indulged in. The best parts may be 
lost, or by being gone over so lightly may fail to be- 
come fixed in the mind. Here a distinction exists 
between reading and studying. The latter should 
aim at completeness in degree, not so much at extent 
to be covered. But reading may vary in amount 
done according to the topic. It is futile to read 



174 SELECTIVE READING. 

some books rapidly. They have to be studied al- 
most word for word. 

As one advances in any study, reading can be done 
more rapidly. A good rule to begin with is to read 
slowly and carefully. After good advance has been 
made in the science, selective or discriminative read- 
ing can be indulged in ; in other words, one can take 
up a book and skim through it, going lightly over the 
parts not directly appertaining to his wants, and giv- 
ing more attention to the sections of most perti- 
nency. 

Perhaps the plan of this book may permit a slight 
digression here in favor of some biographical read- 
ing. If you wish to learn the gospel of labor from 
the best preachers thereof, read some biographies. 
Read the lives of such men as Faraday, who could 
have made a very large fortune in his profession if 
he had confined himself to commercial work. "With 
such a prospect before him, one which would ordi- 
narily be called brilliant, and which is known to have 
been of a nature to excite the ambition of almost 
any one, he voluntarily relinquished it, and elected to 
devote himself to pure science. This he did for the 
rest of his career, and so made himself a benefactor 
of the human race. It was a sacrifice, and a noble 
one. 

Read the beautiful life of Clerk Maxwell, and see 
how his mind from earliest youth was of a mathemat- 
ical and scientific bent. The story of his amicable 




CLERK MAXWELL. 



BIOGRAPHIES. 177 



nature and happy disposition joined to profound 
mathematical abilities is of the deepest interest. 

Other biographies of great scientists preach the 
same gospel over and over again. It is work always 
that tells — all were workers. Newton, Davy, Henry, 
found no royal road to success and fame. All they got 
was the fruit of hard work and of hard thinking. They 
are your examples. Hard thinking helped them. 
They had hardly any library of reference books to 
appeal to ; they had no luxury of reading such as the 
present generation enjoy. Learn from them that 
thinking as well as reading is work, and that to be 
worth anything it must be thoroughly done. 

So do not let reading supplant thinking ; do not 
let reading prevent you from thinking for yourself, — 
rather let reading be the incentive to thought. 

Besides biographies there are books which contain 
anecdotes of the world's thinkers and workers, and 
these will be interesting reading. Such a book is 
Smiles' "Self-Help." 

From biographical works and those containing per- 
sonal anecdotes inspiration can be drawn. If they 
only teach that an uphill road is before you, that the 
best and greatest of mankind had to climb it step by 
step, that there is no easy way to a true knowledge 
of science, that unceasing work was the life and de- 
light of the great ones of the world, — if this much is 
taught by such books, read them. 

They should have one of two effects ; they should 



178 THE INVETERATE READER. 

frighten you out of science, something which may be 
very desirable and conducive to your own good ; or 
they should cause you to enter the portals of science 
with a determination to be a slave for years. 

You probably will not be a slave. You will make 
your living and may even be a successful electrician 
without such labor, — but with labor you will be a suc- 
cessful man. 

An inveterate reader is often one afflicted with a 
peculiar form of laziness. You must be a doer, and 
reading must be a means for the end of doing. So 
for you to boast of having read so many books in a 
year may indicate a defect, not a merit. 



179 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Ethics. 

professional life — the gentleman truth, jus- 
tice and honor examples of successful 

lives brush dolbear gulcher lodge 

pacinotti elihu thompson — conclusion. 

Every life has its specific rules of action in its re- 
lations to the rest of the world, which rules may be 
comprised under the heading of ethics. These are the 
rules of honor and propriety, which tell us what our 
profession calls on us to do in certain cases. 

Without preaching a sermon it is hard to speak of 
ethics. It must, however, be attempted. Perhaps in 
this connection the reader may be willing to go a 
step further and to accept as commentary on the eth- 
ics of professional life the early history of a few dis- 
tinguished scientists. They can act as a conclusion 
to what precedes, and justify some of the views which 
have been taken. Examples could be multiplied in- 
definitely, for the biography of scientific men is full 
of such lives as those noted below. 

Be a gentleman. This is the first advice to be 
given to any one in any position in life. But here 
you are entering the profession which embraced or 



ISO TRUTH AND JUSTICE.. 

embraces in its ranks such men as Faraday, Clerk 
Maxwell and Sir William Thomson. You are to be 
in their company hereafter, — act as if you were in the 
presence of the true " immortals," who have created 
the science of electricity. 

Be true. If you have for months thought over an 
idea and worked up some invention only to find that 
it is useless, abandon it. Do not try to deceive any 
one as to its value. Be truthful even to yourself, and 
do not let self-interest persuade you that anything is 
right which is not, or that anything has value which 
has not. Many a promoter of worthless enterprises 
satisfies his conscience by first getting it persuaded 
of the worth of his schemes ; then he can mis- 
lead others with less trouble of said conscience. 

Do not be obstinate. From lowest workman to 
the least scientific business man whom you come in 
contact with, every one can tell you something. If 
a pay-master teaches you to count money rapidly, you 
have learned something. The coal shoveller can 
show you how to pick up the last bit of coal from the 
floor by the quick jerk of his shovel. Do not be too 
obstinate to learn from every one. If in the wrong 
about anything, be quick to see and acknowledge it, 
and learn what is correct as soon as possible. 

Be just. If you have achieved an important result 
aided by others, give them due credit. Never be 
guilty'of the meanness and injustice of absorbing the 
results of another's work. Here we are brought face 
to face with another motto, namely : 



HONESTY— EXAMPLES FROM LIFE. 181 

Be honest. An invention is the property of the 
maker, unless by special contract it is otherwise de- 
termined. A stolen invention when patented implies 
not only injustice and stealing, but also perjury, for 
a patentee has to take a solemn oath that he was the 
original inventor. Never take a commission for 
influencing the purchase of goods by your em- 
ployer, whether individual or company. If you do, 
you will make yourself the slave of the person whose 
goods you have recommended, and will place yourself 
in his power. Act purely for the interest of your 
employer. You will lose no money by doing this, — 
you may lose the making of money by it, — but be- 
tween these two things there is a wide distinction. 

Charles Francis Brush stands as one of America's 
foremost electrical engineers. Born in 1849 ; in 1862, 
when thirteen years old, he began experimenting with 
batteries and magnets ; two years later he took up 
the construction of microscopes and telescopes, even 
grinding the lenses himself. Induction coils and elec- 
trical apparatus for turning gas on and off, and light- 
ing it in street lamps, were part of his work at this 
early age. He completed in two and one-half years 
the regular high-school course ordinarily requiring 
four years, entered the University of Michigan, and 
graduated one year ahead of his class. Here we see 
the boy emphatically the father of the man. 

Professor A. E. Dolbear of Tufts College, who 
in inventing the telephone ran a close race with 



182 EXAMPLES FROM LIFE. 

Alexander Graham Bell, while working in a pistol fac- 
tory, took up electricity at the age of seventeen. He 
afterwards became a school teacher, then entered a 
locomotive works, and at last, when twenty-six years 
old, managed to enter college, having prepared him- 
self for it by studying in the evenings while working 
in the Springfield Armory. He graduated at the age 
of twenty-nine, years older than most college gradu- 
ates. While an undergraduate he invented a mag- 
neto-telegraph. 

The life of Thomas A. Edison tells of long nights 
of labor. When a boy he practiced telegraphic 
operating assiduously, sometimes all night. When 
his chance came he was prepared to take full advan- 
tage of it. He was only a boy when he invented his 
automatic repeater. 

R. J. Giilcher of Austria, one of the leading electri- 
cal engineers of the Continent, when but twenty-three 
years of age was in charge of a small machine-shop 
in his father's cloth factory. Three years later he 
made it grow to be a large iron foundry and machine 
factory. In 1878 he bought a three-lamp lighting 
plant of Siemens & Halske. He had some trouble 
with the arc-lamp regulators. This started him into 
electricity. He invented new lamps and dynamos, 
and elaborated the circuits of distribution. He is 
sometimes termed the inventor or discoverer of the 
method of dividing the electric light. 

Professor Oliver Lodge went into business with his 



EXAMPLES FROM LIFE. 183 

father at fourteen years of age, and remained so for 
some years. Now and then reading an " English Me- 
chanic," or an article in the " Penny Clyclopedia," we 
find him attending finally a course of six lectures 
by Tyndall, and his latent scientific bent was aroused. 
He took a private course in elementary chemistry. 
Evening classes in chemistry were next attended. At 
last by working at odd hours he managed at the age 
of twenty to enter the London University course, and 
four years later got his degree of B.Sc, and two 
years later he was made a Doctor of Philosophy. 
Here again is a story of night work and of struggling 
upwards through the greatest difficulties. 

Antonio Pacinotti, nineteen years of age, built a 
motor with a ring armature, antedating the Gramme 
ring. His invention is cited often, and the Gramme 
armature is often termed the Pacinotti ring. 

Elihu Thompson at eleven years of age made a 
frictional electric machine from description only, 
never having seen one. All through his school period 
he worked at mechanics and made apparatus, using 
the crudest possible tools. He made many pieces of 
electrical apparatus, batteries, etc., and graduated 
from the high school at seventeen years of age. 
After this he constantly made apparatus of all kinds, 
while acting as assistant professor and professor in 
the same high school. His splendid achievements in 
electrical engineering have since these early days 
won him world-wide fame. 



184 RESUME. 

The lives of such men are a commentary on this 
book. In them we see an early taste for science ; in 
boyhood they invent or construct scientific apparatus. 
The days being necessary for them to earn their liv- 
ings in, the evenings or whole nights are devoted to 
study and work. They goon, and win their position. 
Some reach high positions in mathematics ; some study 
chemistry while little more than boys ; some become 
engineers. All do it by a devotion to science and by 
hard and unceasing work. Some have no teachers ; 
others with meager enough education supplement it 
by work in the night schools, or by attending science 
lectures. The few lives noted are but a sample. 
The engineering ranks are full of such men. 



INDEX. 



PAGE. 

Adaptability for professional 

life 27 

Agassiz, Louis 20 

Age 15,16 

Alrieri, Vittorio 87 

Algebra 30-33 

Ampere's law 6<i 

Analytical geometry, 30 

Apparatus for chemistry 54 

Apprentice work for students, 92, 93 

Arithmetic 30 

Arithmetic of chemistry 49, 50 

Ayrton's "Practical Electricity" 64 

Bad Practice in electric work, 75 

Batteries, home-made 64 

Battery action, chemistry of . . . 5'2 

Battery, standard 63 

Begin, how to 15 

Bell, Alexander Graham 182 

Biographical reading 174, 175 

Blue-print paper 83 

Blue-stone in batteries 51 

Boiler rooms 127 

Books, English technical.. . . 164, 165 

Books, indexes necessary in 165 

Books, quick reference to 167 

Boys, C. V 60 

Boys, C. V., as a mechanic 72 

Boys' natural tastes 17,18 

Brush, Charles Francis 28, 1S1 

Bugs, so-called 133, 134 

Building operations 124, 125 

Business man, the 156 

Cadets of the profession 131 

Calculus 30 

Card indexes 171, 172 

Careless measurements. .... .26, 27 

Caveats : their uselessness . . 140, 141 

Character to be studied 17 

Chemical experiments, simple. 52-54 
Chemical reactions, every-day. 48 

Chemistry 47-5S 

Chemistry, abstract of ground 
to be covered in 54, 55 



PAGE. 

Chemistry, danger of experi- 
ments in 48, 50 

Chemistry, difficulty of simple 

experiments in 47, 48 

Chemistry, mathematics of 35, 36 

Chemistry, philosophy of 56 

Chemistry, precautions in 50 

Chemistry, qualitative and 

quantitaiive 57,58 

Cliques 158, 159 

Coaching students 101 

Coal as source of energy 108 

Coal consumption in a station . 109 

College apparatus 102 

College course not necessaryl02, 103 

College education 98-106 

College, time required for 9* 

Combustion, chemistry of . . . . 49 
Companies, disputes in. ... 158, 159 

Competitors, your future 2*> 

Complaints of customers 130, 131 

Concealment 22 

Conceit 158 

Condensers 66 

Conscientiousness 161 

Consideration for ignorance. . . 157 
Constructing engineer, the.. 123-128 

Contentment 17 

Contractors 124 

Contractors, dealing with. .159, 160 

Contractors, enmity of 160 

Cornell University, notes on 

electrical course in 105 

Courtesy 131 

Courtesy in difficult positions. . 159 

Davy, Sir Humphrey 175 

Dealing with the public 130, 131 

Definitions in physics 41 

Definitions: their use 168, 169 

Descriptive geometry 81 

Details : their importance 76 

Development of an idea not 

invention 137 

Differentiation of station and 

constructing engineers 135 



186 



IXDEX. 



PAGE. 

Difficulties, solving 86, S7 

Difficulties to be encountered 

in the profession 14 

Dimensions of physical quanti- 
ties, theory of .42, 43. 45, 46 

Directors, boards of 157, 158 

Doing- anything electrical 15 

Dolbear, Prof. A. E 1S1 , 182 

Drawing 7 7-85 

Drawing at night 82, 83 

Drawing, catalogue cuts as 

models for 85 

Drawing, conventional sym- 
bols in 84 

Drawing, ink for 80 

Drawing in laboratory note- 
books 79, 80 

Drawing instruments, care of . . 83 

Drawing, neatness in 79, 80 

Drawing paper, cross-ruled 81 

Drawing, practical notes on. .79, 83 
Drawing, practice in free-hand 78 
Drawing, scale for free-hand. . . 80 

Drawing, shade lines in 79, 80 

Drawing, shades and shadows 81,82 
Drawing, sitting or standing 

position in 82 

Drawings of descriptive geom- 
etry problems 81, 82 

Drawing, stencils and rubber 

types in 84 

Drawings, up-to-date effects in, 85 
Drawing, utility of, to electrical 

engineer 78 

Dynamo building and design- 
ing 115, 116 

Dynamos and motors, different 
grades of 118 

Economy, real 110 

Edison, Thomas A 29, 182 

Efficiency of station : how de- 
termined 133 

Electrical apparatus, h om e - 

made 60-64 

Electrical engineer, the 10-12 

Electrical factory work for stu- 
dents 92 

Electrician should be a mechan- 
ic 71 

Electrician, the self-educated.. 10 

Electrician, work of the 11 

Electricity a mystery 146 

Electricity at home 59-67 



PACE, 

Electricity, experimental study 

of 59 

Electricity, static 64-66 

Electricity the science of meas- 
urement 60 

Electric workers everywhere.. 25 

Electrometer 65 

Electrometer, Thomson weight 65 

Ends, wrong and right 152, 153 

Energies cf nature 108 

Energy 41 

Energy in electric circuit 42 

Engineer, re'a' ion of, to scientist 13 
Engineer, the servant of cor- 
porations 154 

Engines, preferences for 

specal ....111,112 

Engines, selection of 126, 127 

Erection of plants 120 

Ethics 179-184 

Examinations in England 165 

Examples from life 181, 184 

Executive ability 133, 134 

Exponents, fractional 32 

Factories, expansion of small. 121 
Fac ories, range of work in. 114, 115 

Factories, small 118 

Faraday, Michael. 12, 13, 29, 174, 180 

Fields of work 10 

Force : wr ng doctrine of its 

conservation 169 

Friends as teachers 86, 87 

Galvanometer 62, 63 

Galvanometer, tangent 63 

Gentleman, the ISO, 181 

Geometry 33, 34 

Geometry, anal} tical 36 

Geometry, descriptive 81 

George Eliot 152 

Glass, transparency of 39 

Graduates of colleges, unplaced 106 

Gravity actuating energy. .- 107 

Gulcher, R. J 182 

Harvard College : entrance 

course in physics 60 

Heat, physics of 40 

Henry, Joseph 175 

Honesty 181 

Honor and honesty 77 

Humanity, dealing with 184 

Human nature 154 

Idleness 26 



INDEX. 



187. 



PAGE. 

Ignorance, how to treat your 
own 24, 25 

Illumination, evenness of 39 

Importance of small things 21 

Improper use of dynamos and 

motors 118,119 

Improvements in electric ma- 
chinery 1 19 

Impulse, acting on 161 

Incandescent lamps 40 

Independence 157 

Index rerum.. . . .171-173 

Indolence of reading 166 

Inductive system of studying 

physics 43, 44 

Intolerance 158 

Introductory 9-28 

Inventing 136-141 

Invention and construction. 137, 138 
Invention, commercial aspects 

of 138 

Invention, fixing date of 141 

Invention, practical view of .138,139 

Invention, restrictions on 138 

Invention, success of an 140 

Invention, what constitutes 137, 138 

Inventor's disappointments 139 

Inventor, the qualified 136 

Investigations, value of 13 

Investigators, independent 146 

Judgment 128 

Justice 180 

Knowledge, thoroughness of 
'little 170 

Laboratory Work in factories 122 

Leakage of lines of force 117 

Leyden jar 65 

Library, the circulating. . . .88. 170 

Life, examples from 23, 24 

Life, the ideal 151,152 

Life, the race of 150-152 

Light, physics of 40 

Lodge, Oliver 65,182. 183 

Logarithms 32, 33 

Losses in steam practice 112, 113 

Luminescence 40 

Machine Designing 73, 74 

Machinery and tools 70, 71 

Magnetic circuit, the 60,117 

Magnetic leakage 116, 117 

Magnetism, study of 66, 67 



page. 

Magnets, shapes of 117 

Managing workmen, 129,130,131,132 
Manufacturing engineer, the 1 14-122 

Materials, testing of 121, 122 

Mathematics 29-37 

Mathematics in school 69 

Maxwell, J. Clerk, 13, 29, 142, 

152, 174, 180 

Means and methods instead of 

ends 153 

Mechanical engineer as electri- 
cian 73 

Mechanical engineering 68-76 

Mechanical engineering in col- 
leges 72 

Mechanical engineering : its 

field 69, 70 

Mechanical engineer, the 73 

Mechanical engineer, the work 

of the 70,71 

Mechanical work and the engi- 
neer 24 

Mechanical work, examples of 

extremes in 73, 74 

Mechanics of electricity 42 

Mechanics, rarity of good 163 

Mechanics, selective processes 

of 147 

Mechanic, the true and false.. 71, 72 

Mensuration 34 

Meter bridge 61, 62 

Meters, electric 120 

" Middlemarch" 152 

Mistakes, realization of 153 

Money, a low ideal 150, 151 

Motors and dynamos, different 

grades of 118 

Motors, badly made 116 

Necfssarv Knowledge 17 

Newton, Sir Is^ac 175 

Object of book .... 14 

Observation: its value to scien- 
tists 20 

Observation of machinery 74 

O t)stinacy 180 

Ohm's law 35 

One idea, men of 136, 137 

One-sidedness 23,24 

Original investigations 142-149 

Pacinotti, Antonio 183 

Packing for piston rods 113 

Papers, daily, utility of reading 17i> 



188 



INDEX. 



PAGB. 

Patent attorneys 140 

Patent, claims limit the scope 

of a 140 

Patenting inventions 136 

Patents, advantage of early ap- 
plication for 141 

Pencils, how to sharpen 83 

Persistence 27 

Photometric observations ... 88, 39 

Physics 38-46 

Physics, how to study 43, 44 

Physics, mathematics in. . . ..45,46 

Physics of electricity 43 

Physics, study of, by experi- 
ment 44, 45 

Pipes for steam 128 

Plant, electrical, is a unit 125 

Plants, how to obtain records 

of ....127,128 

Positions for students, difficulty 

in finding 94 

Powers of ten 37 

Practical life 142 

President, criticisms of 155, 156 

President of companies 154-156 

Problems in construction 119 

Problems in electrical engineer- 
ing 11, 12 

Progress of the self-taught en- 
gineering student 16 

Publication of researches. . .147, 14S 
Pupils in schools, tastes of . . .. 89 
" Put Yourself in His Place." . . 166 

Qualities of station engi- 
neer 1^9, 130 

Questions, asking and answer- 
ing 21,22 

Reactions, chemical 49 

Reade, Charles 166 

Reader, the inveterate 178 

Reading 164-173 

Reading and re-reading. . 105,166 

Reading and thought 166 

Reading an instrument 166 

Reading electrical journals .... 167 
Reading, specialized or not 167, 168 

Reading, taking notes of 166 

Reading thoroughly ... . . 1 6s 

Reading, two methods of. . .173, 174 

Records, forgotten 146 

Records, incorrect Ill 

Recreation in work 16 

Reduction of magnetic leakage 117 



Regrets, useless 163 

Re-issue decisions 140 

Researches, publication of.. 147, 14s 

Resistance coils 62, 63 

Revolutions in engineering 112 

Rings 158,159 

Ruskin, John 26, 169 

Sal-Ammoniac in batteries 51 

Scholarships 101 

Schools, pupils in 89, 90 

Science in schools 89 

Science, Napoleons of 147 

Scientist, work of the 13 

Scrap-books 170 

Scraps, preserving, on leaves 172,173 

" Self-Help," Smiles' 175 

Selfishness 151 

Sentences, short and long 149 

Shades and shadows 81, 82 

Shop-work .' 74 

Sketching, pen or pencil 80 

Society, membership of an en- 
gineering . . , 148 

Sodium bicamonate, experi- 
ment with 53 

Statement, clearness of, in writ- 
ing 148,149 

Station: a contrivance for pro- 
ducing electrical energy. . 109, 110 

Station engineer, the 129-135 

Station reports, errors in 110, 1 1 1 

Stations, planning 125 

Steam engineering 107-113 

Steam-engine : its imperfec- 
tion 108,109 

Steam, high-pressure 126 

Stoichiometry 50 

Students' courses at factories, 

schedules of 96,97 

Studies, early 16 

Studying alone 87 

Studying and reading 173, 174 

Success 150-163 

Success, qualities for 17 

Superintendent, duties of sta- 
tion 132,133, 134,135 

Taking sides in disputes ...158, 159 

Teacher, advantage of a 86 

Teacher, qualities of a good .... 91 

Teachers 86-91 

Teachers, positions as 101 

Teachers, scarcity of good. ... 90 
Ten, powers of 31 



IX OIL X. 



189 



PACK. 

Tesla, Nikola 28 

Theories, absurd and useless . . . 145 

Theorists, warfare of . . 145 

Theorizing by incompetent men 

142,143, 146 

Thermo-chemistry 51,52 

Thompson, Elihu 28,183 

Thompson, Sylvanus P 1 10 

Thomson, Sir William 28, 68, 

142, 152, 180 

Thomson, Sir William: viewson 

mechanical engineering 68 

Thoroughness 18, 74, 75 

Thought and reading 166 

Torsion instruments 65 

Trigonometry 34. 35 

Truth 180 

Tufts College 181 

University Extension 88 

Vanity 156,157 



PAGE. 

Visiting shops 74 

Voltameters 63 

Wheatstone Bridge 61,62 

Wiring diagrams 84 

Workman, student engaging as 

common 93,94 

Workmen, idle 162, 163 

Workmen, managing 16L, 162 

Workmen placed by officers of 

companies 162 

Work of li e 184 

Work, passing judgment upon 100 
Works, positions in large vs. 

small 94 

Works, premiums for positions 

in 94,95 

Works, students' courses in. . . 94 
Works, time required for stu- 
dents' courses in 95 

Writing English 14* 



Other Works of T. O'CONOE SLOANE, A.M., E.M., Ph.D. 




JUST PUBLISHED. 



Standard Electrical Dictionary. 



624 Pages. 



$3 



350 Illustrations. 

00. 



In the " Standard Electrical Diction- 
ary" we have an important addition to 
the working library of the amateur and 
professional electrician. The definitions 
are illustrated when necessary by well- 
executed illustrations, which number 
three hundred and fifty The work 
has a very complete index, which ren- 
ders the use of cross references unneces- 
sary. The author has done his work in 
a very thorough manner. *#* There is a 
clearness in the definitions which recom- 
mends the book particularly to the be- 
ginner, while the advanced electrician 
will find such subjects as the theory of 
dimensions and the dimensions of elec- 
trical units fully treated. The work is 
an invaluable addition to even the small- 
est of electrical libraries.— Scientific 
American. 



ARITHMETIC OF ELECTRICITY. 

a manual of klectrical calculations by arithmetical methods. 
Illustrated, Third Edition, $1.00. 

It is very useful to that class of readers to whom Algebra is a comparatively unknown 
quantity, and *** will meet its wants admirably.— Ulectrical World. 



ELECTRIC TOY MAKING, 

DYNAMO BUILDING and ELECTRIC-MOTOR CONSTRUCTION. 

Very Fully Illustrated, 1.00. 

An interesting work ; and a careful study of its contents and the application of the rules 
here laid down may well make the study profitable to the earnest and intelligent young 
worker. — Engineering News. 



ELECTRICITY SIMPLIFIED. 

The Practice and Theory of Electricity, including a Popular Review of the Theory 

of Electricity, with Analogies, and Examples of its Practical 

Application in Every-day Life. 

Fully Illustrated, $1.00. 

The three last-named $1.00 books by Prof. SLOANE are uniform in size and binding 
with •' How to Become a Successful Electrician." 



NORMAN V^. HENLEY dk CO, 

PUBLISHERS, 

Vanderbilt Building, 132 NASSAU ST., NEW YORK. 



I 



